Open Letter from a Londoner to the Mayor

Dear Sadiq

So much has changed since that First Night of Hamilton in London, but I am sure that for you, like me, that awe-inspiring experience is still indelibly etched in your memory. And whilst I know that you are fully aware of the economic contribution of the capital’s live entertainment community, I would like you to put the facts and figures aside for a moment and just focus on that night at the Victoria Palace for a few seconds. Relive the feelings, the emotions it evoked in you. Because while you won’t see emotional experiences itemised by name in the city’s accounting spreadsheets, just dig a little deeper and you will hit paydirt. London’s real payoff. The experiences that attract more overseas visitors to London than New York, Las Vegas and Sydney combined on a good year.

The evening of that First Night I was on a bus in Oxford Street when I got a text message telling me I had a ticket. I was delivering seasonal cheer to West End box offices as a small thank you for taking such good care of my company’s UK visitors, the ‘legions from the regions’ who travel every year from Lands End to John O Groats, to see a West End show.  Staying in London’s superb hotels. Eating in some of the finest restaurants in the world. And, unfortunately for me that evening, jamming Oxford Street and Regent Street with their armfuls of shopping bags when I still had three more drink drop offs to make!

My heart rate increased dramatically as I fought my way through the crowds and back to my office above the Ambassadors Theatre.  Not with anticipation, but with fear. I had heard so much about Hamilton that my expectations were sky high, and I couldn’t see how any show could live up to them (especially amidst a First Night audience, a notoriously fickle cocktail of disparate interests -no offence, Sadiq). And then the lights went down. And the show started. And my expectations were scattered to the four winds. As I’m sure were yours and everyone else in the Victoria Palace that night. As I tweeted madly afterwards: “Show Boat opened the door, Oklahoma! and Oliver! nudged it wider, JCS, Miz and Mormon put the catch on the lock, but Hamilton blew the door off its hinges. So many more will make it in now. Audiences and storytellers and performers.”

Only as we both know, they won’t now. Unless London’s live entertainment sector has a nine-figure Preservation Order slapped on it. That night back in 2017 it was the Victoria Palace. But it could just as well have been The O2, The Almeida, or The Spiritual Bar in Camden.  That is why live entertainment is London’s USP. We may have no decent beaches and at best unpredictable weather, but Londoners and visitors alike know that they can have their lives transformed (for the price of a ticket!) by the unforgettable emotional experiences that this city delivers like no other on Earth. So take a look out your window, Sadiq, towards the other City of London, and tell me, hand-on-heart, if there is a more bankable commodity than that grip London has on the hearts of millions? If we release it now, we may never get it back again. And this city, and the world, will be much, much poorer for it.

With all good wishes for a safe and successful return from Lockdown

David