Curtain

The West End isn’t facing the final curtain

Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on May 14, 2008

This buzzy, caffeine-addicted British impresario ought to be on top of the world. Two of her Broadway productions - Tom Stoppard’s Rock’ n’ Roll and the old farce Boeing-Boeing - have just been nominated for 10 Tony Awards in New York, the US theatre’s equivalent of the Oscars.

A host of other Brits have also been nominated. And is she happy? Is she hell. Having scored success on Broadway, she has merely taken it as an excuse to give the West End a good kicking.

“Broadway has become far more fertile and far more adventurous in play programming than the West End. This year alone on Broadway there have been 23 new productions, including 10 new plays. If you look at the West End, it’s a pitiful number in comparison,” she told our arts correspondent.

It’s true that this season there has been far more straight drama on Broadway than usual. Most years there is only a large enough audience to sustain one “snob” hit - a serious, intelligent play that people feel they really ought to see among all the musicals on offer. But what are those snob hits?

A couple of years ago it was Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. The year after it was Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia. Did those shows begin their life on Broadway or even anywhere in the United States? Of course not. They both originated at our own National Theatre.

And what of the shows for which Friedman has been nominated for Tonys this year?

Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll opened at London’s Royal Court Theatre before transferring to the West End, where it enjoyed a far longer run than it did on Broadway. Boeing-Boeing ran at London’s Comedy Theatre for almost a year. It is hard to see what Miss Friedman is grumbling about. Straight plays have undoubtedly been having a hard time in the West End recently - though not nearly as hard as they have traditionally endured on Broadway. Indeed, the problem has largely been that London seemed to be following in New York’s footsteps, with musicals forcing out straight drama.

Last summer, matters seemed to be reaching a nadir. Twenty-nine musicals were playing in the West End, and only seven plays, the lowest number ever. Tune-and-toe shows were even muscling their way into small theatres, such as the Duchess, formerly a haven for straight plays.

However, the tide seems to be turning. There are now 11 straight plays running in the West End and 25 musicals. But these figures are deceptive, since they don’t include such dramatic powerhouses as the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, London’s many outstanding fringe theatres or the RSC, which is enjoying a blinding season with Shakespeare’s histories at the Roundhouse.

And, of the nine straight plays currently on Broadway, three are British productions and a fourth is a British play, Top Girls, with a British director. What’s more, following the deservedly stinking reviews for The Lord of the Rings and Gone with the Wind, I have a hunch that musicals will no longer be seen as automatic money-spinners.

The last few days have seen the arrival of two superb new straight plays in the West End - the thrilling That Face, by newcomer Polly Stenham (produced, ironically enough, by Sonia Friedman, after success at the Royal Court) and a deeply moving revival of Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, starring Greta Scacchi.

David Pugh, whose recent hits include Art, Equus and the current God of Carnage, has no sympathy with Friedman’s doom and gloom. “I’ve won a Tony myself in New York, but it’s far more exciting working on plays here. I don’t see why Sonia Friedman feels the need to do down London. I think she should shut up and get on with nurturing new playwrights.”

Amen to that. After visiting Broadway every season for more than a decade I have absolutely no doubt that when it comes to fresh and exciting drama London beats New York every time.

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