A New Life for West End Theatre?
How Do You Solve a Problem Like London Theatre Casting TV Shows?
As yet another reality TV show casts the leads in a West End musica,l are claims that this is breathing new life into the West End really true?
TV talent show I’d Do Anything is currently generating publicity and controversy on the BBC. Following on from the success of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Grease is the Word and Any Dream Will Do, I’d Do Anything is the latest reality TV show whose format is being used to cast the leading roles of Nancy and Oliver in an upcoming West End production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!
Fortunately viewers are spared having to decide between one waiflike boy and the next – the Olivers are not subject to public vote. Instead, 12 girls compete for public affection week after week to play Nancy, the tart with a heart.
Reality TV show casting is not new. Since Pop Idol and X Factor first exploited the UK’s hunger for fame and fortune, the West End musical has become home to these "celebrities", drawing upon public affection for the underdog. The musical Chicago seems to have become the jumping off point for X Factor losers to launch their musical theatre career.
Recently London audiences enjoyed the sight of Cheryl from Girls Aloud, a manufactured girl band formed on the back of a TV talent show, being given the opportunity to perform in Les Miserables. The entire process was recorded and broadcast as part of a reality TV show which followed the Girls Aloud singers as they tried to pursue other passions. It made for good television but appalling theatre.
West End attendance figures up – but at what cost?
Let's forget for a moment the vast anti-reality casting backlash. Let's ignore no less a theatrical and celluloid luminary than Kevin Spacey lambasting the entire concept; West End audience figures are up and in every newspaper report on the subject we are told that reality TV casting has brought a whole new audience to the West End. That can only be a good thing, right? Well, yes if it is true. Unfortunately to claim that the West End is thriving as a result of these TV shows is stretching the truth a little too far.
The coach parties and charabancs that flood into the West End at school holidays and weekends to see The Sound of Music, or Grease, or Joseph probably are an audience of theatre goers new to the whole experience, but they are not there for the quality of performances. They are not even really there for the show. They are there to cheer and drool and support "one of their own" – to scream for Lee Mead, for whom they voted week after week and who has become a regular feature on the pages of their Heat magazine, particularly Torso of the Week in his lovely Joseph loincloth.
They come to support poor Susan McFadden, who took such stick from the judges over her weight, and hasn’t she slimmed down nicely to slip into Sandy Dumbrowski’s cat suit in Grease? And West End producers know that they will come. Where once the West End was a gold-standard in performance where world-renowned performers appeared in world renowned productions; now costs are being cut right left and centre. Grease and Joseph are not even new productions with new sets. Joseph is a revival of the last West End production, the set dusted down and given a lick of paint while Grease isn’t even a revival of the West End production – it’s the touring production. The West End is being cheapened right under our eyes.
Elsewhere in the West End, at a stunning double bill of Pinter’s The Lover and The Collection, seats go empty. A brilliantly imaginative and intelligent production of Brief Encounter has tumbleweed blowing around the auditorium.
Selling Out the West End
The West End is not enjoying a revival; it is complicit in a dumbing-down of theatre. It has sold out to the television channels. It is failing to excite audiences, to bring anything new. The sparkle and glitter has gone from the West End; it has been auctioned off to the highest bidder so that West End producers can pocket vast advances and claim they are breathing new life into Theatreland. Only when we have innovative productions, original pieces and world-class talent will the West End will thrive again.
