Please Sir, may we have some more?

For many years there were two rotunda at Drury Lane. Theatregoers progressing through the larger one, that glorious central atrium, would be greeted by William Shakespeare, apparently in the throes of an uncharacteristic writer’s block, immortalized alongside his fellow actors Edmund Kean and David Garrick and composer William Balfe (yet another composer taking up permanent residency at The Lane!) The smaller (but no less important) rotunda was a mighty metal drum that took centre stage in the Drury Lane Box Office. This ingenious revolving device, part-carousel, part-centrifuge, ensured that every book of tickets, for every seating section, for every performance, was always within easy reach of the box-office clerks’ fingertips (even when simultaneously juggling a large G & T and B & H).

We didn’t have a rotunda in our office above The Ambassadors, but on occasion the rear walls of our York headquarters would be bulging with more theatre tickets than you’d find in any theatre in the West End. I distinctly remember it took me two-and-a-half days, working flat out, to count the tickets for just one Musical (but what was the show again??). Of course not every Production, or year, was that successful, so it was important for us to set aside some of the earnings from the bumper harvests as a hedge against the leaner times. A bit like… That was it! Two and a half days just counting tickets for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In addition to our sizable allocation, I had purchased stock from practically every agent in London, each in their own distinctive design… there was red and yellow and green and brown and blue. And our Superbreak guests loved that stock of many colours. They descended on London in their hordes. By car, train or coach, the choice was theirs, just as long as they spent a night in London. No stay, no show. 

But what miracle transformed an Old Testament Prophet into Tour Operator Profit???

I will shortly be celebrating 40 years in London’s West End, and during that time I have successfully surfed tsunamis of demand for some of the biggest shows of all time (Cats, Miz, Phantom, Oliver! My Fair Lady, Miss Saigon, Mamma Mia! and Mary Poppins). I have also been responsible for circulating a host of other major productions through the commercial capillaries of the UK’s national network (or more accurately ‘patchwork’) of musical theatre audiences (Disney’s The Lion King, Jersey Boys, Dirty Dancing, Wicked, Billy Elliot, Hairspray, We Will Rock You). But across those four decades I have never witnessed a phenomenon quite like the impact of TV casting. ALW’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? led the way. The format was then replicated with Any Dream Will Do, Grease Is The Word and I’d Do Anything (which combined TV casting of Jodie Prenger with the name casting of Rowan Atkinson). Over The Rainbow saw Danielle Hope safely onto the yellow brick road and made a Superstar of Ben Forster. I remember bumping into Jessie Buckley on the tube and congratulating her on coming second in I’d Do Anything. The next time I met her was in Sheeeky’s after Winter’s Tale where she totally eclipsed Branagh and Dench.

For over five years these peak-time TV platforms mobilized vast armies of musical theatregoers from Land’s End to John o’ Groats …not forgetting the ‘Isle of Sam.’ And the handmade banners of the Studio Audiences reflected the strength of the auditionees’ regional support. As did the voting. These were local heroes competing for glory in front of a national TV audience. And a national TV audience hooked to West End shows. So when our doors re-open again, and UK Domestic theatregoers are more important to the West End than ever before, can someone PLEASE persuade the BBC to book a stretch of Saturday night seven o’clock slots (and Graham Norton) to put a regional hopeful into a West End show, and put the West End back in the nation’s living rooms.