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Sold Out. Paid Peanuts.

THERE has never been a better time to love the arts. No?

We can be world citizens without leaving home and yet, in the very institutions built to house entertainment, the people who make the experience possible are still not being paid fairly. Hold that thought.

Firstly, a word to new readers who may wonder why this blog takes such a violently unpredictable course. 

Welcome to the twenty-first century. The themes will emerge from the apparent randomness, I promise, but it will often be a bracing read.

The times from which it is written are hard on the nerves, even for those of us lucky enough to lead charmed lives. If the things I discuss were not difficult, they would not be true. See my recent campaign on institutions slashing and burning through live music in live theatre.

Meanwhile, as I have mentioned before, something worth celebrating: more people are attending theatre in the UK than at any recorded point in history, according to the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre.

A remarkable fact. Yet here is something worth being pissed off about, as I head to the 50th anniversary Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall shortly. 

Indeed, the majority of West End front-of-house staff are not paid the London Living Wage (£14.80 ph). Casual FOH roles and bar work at Delfont Mackintosh pays as little as £13 an hour. 

The reason this matters is that this is not happening in isolation. Off the top of my head, LW Theatres pay £13.40 an hour and ATG (London) pay a pitiful £12.85 an hour. Working conditions also reportedly suck. 

Heavens. We know that UK theatre staff have been attacked, sexually harassed and abused by drunken audience members during performances.

This is important beyond the immediate consequences because well-trained front-of-house staff are not a luxury. They are the experience. Our theatre-going is still underwritten by short-term contracts, unreasonable shifts, and countless unpaid hours. At a time of cuts, nearly all of these short changed employees are afraid to speak up. 

That these workers — many of them young — remain underpaid is something I cannot accept. I have raised it in person with West End Producers, Heads of Unions, the Editor of The Stage, theatre landlords, funders, philanthropists, journalists. Nothing changes. 

Furthermore, I have, in the past, taken easy shots at greedy producers. Some are. Some are not. In any event, the rich should not be taking advantage of the less well off. 

Full stop.

The harsher truth, however, is that theatre owners, these operators are not sharing their record profits with the workforce. 

Alas, Andrew Lloyd Webber says every penny of LW Theatres’ profit is ploughed back into the buildings. Yet ATG (Sonia Friedman is now a major shareholder) have no excuse: the majority of the London venues are a dump.

Whichever way you slice it, the buildings, cannot function without the dedicated, skilled people who take care of us: the audience. Concrete does not get us out the building in an emergency, help us to our seats or gently welcome little children through the door.

As Union Equity recently stated: “It’s important that West End, Commercial and Subsidised producers share the success detailed in the report with our members – without whom the show does not go on.”

So yes, blissful ignorance, on all of this, is very much off the menu, especially now. 

And that connects to the governments Employment Right Act being implemented on a phased basis across 2026 and 2027: a commitment to improve everyday life for millions navigating the sharp end of the modern jobs market. 

We know that West End FOH workers juggling unpredictable pay and hours’ – with some shits as short as 90 minute – keeps staff from upskilling and finding new jobs. 

To understand this we need to remember that the gap between £12.85 and £14.80 is £2.05. On a 30-hour contract, that’s £3,000 a year — a holiday, childcare, a car, a flat with a garden.

Tell you what, in one of the world’s most expensive cities, that gap matters. 

Time to close it.

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West End queue-jumping- really?

London’s theatre scene is booming. Show after show is selling out weeks in advance.

But behind the packed auditoriums and soaring ticket prices lies a more complicated story. 

ATG Entertainment, one of the biggest players in the game, recently reported record operating profits of £142.6 million for the year ending March 2024. 

Not bad for a time where West End audiences have plateaued year-on-year, according to figures from the Society of London Theatre.

Anyway, ATG now operates 64 venues across Europe and North America—and, tellingly, its US business now generates more turnover than its UK arm.

You might think such success would lead to greater investment in audiences and workers. 

Instead, ATG faces mounting criticism for what many see as cynical profiteering. Most recently, it introduced new fees that allow patrons to jump queues and access “priority” experiences. 

At its West End venues, including the Ambassadors and Harold Pinter, the privilege of skipping the line now costs £5. Elsewhere, you can pay £10 for a Priority Club Bar pass that may get you a programme, a designated bar, and faster entry. 

But can we get a quick reality check here, please? Two of ATGs West End venues only have 432 (Fortune Theatre) and 444 (Ambassadors Theatre) seats. There will never be a queue.

According to Andrew Rawlinson, ATG’s business director for London and West End theatres, the scheme has been “well received” and is all about offering “a more relaxed and speedier entry.” But scroll through social media and you’ll see a rather different picture: one viral comment summed it up as “Absolute Thieving Gits.”

This creeping monetisation of basic conveniences—queue-jumping, access to a bar, a programme—is depressingly familiar. It’s the Ryanair model, applied to the theatre. 

And as critic Clive Davis noted this week, don’t be surprised if others follow suit. Meanwhile, one Facebook user wondered whether she could be fast-tracked to the front of the ladies queue.

And if they could, ATG surely would. 

Indeed, ATG insists it’s trying to “make the theatre experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible.” But in practice, it’s reinforcing the outdated notion that comfort and access are only for those who can pay for them. 

It’s the return of the old: the wealthy sit downstairs, while poorer patrons are shuffled upstairs and to the back—only now, they can pay extra to get in quicker.

What’s more, thanks to dynamic pricing, ticket prices are still obscene. The hit play Giant, first seen at the Royal Court, currently has tickets on sale for £300. (A friend of mine paid 10p for a standing ticket to see it during its run at the Court).

And yet, despite its record profits and packed houses, ATG is not an accredited London Living Wage employer. 

Outrageous. 

Nor are any of the other major commercial West End theatre operators. The National Minimum Wage in the UK is now £12.21 an hour— the London Living Wage is £13.85. It appears that it is the Front of House workers, currently being hammered by the cost-of-living crisis, that are most impacted by this. 

According to one head of a union, the sector is locked into a two-year minimum terms agreement that prevents renegotiation until January 2026. Wage growth slowed 5.6 per cent in the three months to March, down from 5.9 per cent in the previous three months, according to figures from the Office For National Statistics (ONS).

But why should basic fairness wait? Surely this could be changed by mutual consent. Why should £300 tickets not guarantee decent wages—not just for the stars, but for everyone involved. 

This isn’t just about ATG. It’s about a creeping culture of greed in commercial theatre. The kind that sees theatregoers as revenue streams to be squeezed, and workers as overheads are minimised. There’s no polite way to frame it.

ATG has always been a difficult company to like—one that built its name on unremitting unpleasantness as standard. One Olivier Award winning playwright privately compared its leadership style to “a silent-movie villain on a gap year from tying people to railway tracks.” 

So yes: ATG. If theatre is to remain a living, breathing art form for everyone—not just a luxury for the few—we need to resist this drift toward elitism, upselling, and unfairness. 

With so many hares now running on the broader ticketing industry—it’s hopeful to think we might finally be nearing meaningful regulation that serves the audience’s interests, so let’s all resolve to stay very, very angry about this one.

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Unchecked Ticket Hikes Are Pricing People Out Of Theatregoing

Glow sticks. We’ll come on to that in a moment.

This week, The iPaper’s Kasia Delgado issued an indictment of A Streetcar Named Desire’s £305 ticket prices, stating: “Theatre needs to make money. It also needs to remain valued and loved, and if only people with loads of spare cash, or a very relaxed approach to credit card debt, end up being able to see it, I worry about where that’ll leave the best form of entertainment that exists. An art form, that – after all – Shakespeare famously put on stage for anyone and everyone.”

Inflation busting premium ticket prices of £305, plus booking fee, is not only absurd, it is criminal amid the cost of living crisis.

To the West End, currently a topsy turvy combination of premium pricing, day seats and even a ‘game of chance’ involving glow sticks.
Rip off

Heck, even leading lady Patsy Ferran is uncomfortable with it all, stating in an interview recently: “The last couple of years theatre prices have reached a point that is shocking to me, but maybe I should just get used to it.”

In reality, profit thirsty ATG’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve.

Of course, our old friend dynamic pricing is at play. I get it. Streetcar is a commercial show entitled to charge whatever the market can take.

But affordability equals sustainability, and sensible ticket prices are key to the theatre’s survival.

Speaking on a panel entitled Building a Better Financial Model for Theatre at The Stage’s Future of Theatre conference, Lighting designer Paule Constable said that premium tickets have generated a “wave of discontent” within the industry.

She added: “We need more transparency around how that money is spent. We, as a workforce, need to make the effort to understand that more and it needs to be talked about more.”

It’s hard not to admit that she has a point. Theatre has got to be kept accessible to everybody, because ultimately everything depends on keeping audiences excited about going.

Still, you can see A Streetcar Named Desire for a tenner. If you queue up 2.5 hours before performances for a glowstick (yes, really). Out of the 30, five glow sticks glow green when snapped. The lucky five can head to the box office and buy a pair of front row £10 tickets. There is a weekly lottery.

Send in the clowns. Ah, don’t bother. They’re here.

Phoenix Theatre Glowstick Day Seat Queue

Anyway, once I’d peeled myself off the ceiling, I went along to embrace the madness this week. Reader, my glow stick did not glow. But I was offered a £35 seat in the dress circle or a £10 standing ticket. I opted for the £10 standing ticket. Later my phone rang and I was put in a house seat. Lucky, eh.

A representative for A Streetcar Named Desire said that 83% of all its tickets have been sold at £100 or under. Hm.

Still, the average face value of top-price tickets in the West End has rocketed by a fifth since 2019, a recent survey by The Stage revealed. Glancing at a handful of West End shows £1-300 stalls seats are sadly standard now.

Of course, this fluctuates year on year and is frequently influenced by a small number of high-profile shows. Last year, Cock – starring Jonathan Bailey – saw producers disastrously try and flog £400 tickets, stating it was based on “supply and demand”

What are we to conclude from this?

As in many economic situations, there is a squeezed middle: theatre lovers who are neither wealthy enough to buy premium tickets and who don’t have a flexible work / life pattern to queue in person or online for discounted tickets. 

Seven Card Stud



Surely, extending personalised pricing to students or the unwaged, which was widespread in the 1980s, would maximise audiences. That said, personalised pricing can be progressive. In Finland, for example, speeding tickets are based on your income. 

All the same, I worry that we shall soon reach the point of no return, that the gap between the commercial and subsidised sector is growing ever wider and that the young will be put off by high prices. Of course, the system is broken, it’s not working for weary audiences.

But it’s not just the rising ticket prices that worry me. It’s also the sense of banality afflicting the West End. There are, as ever, 33 musicals of varying quality currently running. We should ponder both the escalating cost of tickets and the actual quality of what is on offer. 

Anyway, I’m with singer Neil Young who last week said it best: “It’s over” and that “the old days are gone” amid wider consternation at ticketing company’s pricing policies. And that is where we are. 

Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran in A Streetcar Named Desire

Since the success of the subsidised and commercial sectors are intimately bound, it can’t just be left to subsidised theatre to take responsibility for building tomorrow’s audiences, the West End has to play – and pay – its part too.

A Streetcar Named Desire runs until 6 May

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SOS: Let’s Talk About Theatre Audiences Misbehaving

Going to the theatre – particularly jukebox musicals – in 2023 seems to sum up an entire nation tormented by its class prejudices, insecurities, self-loathing, and entitlement.

Indeed, last week, Edinburgh Playhouse director Colin Marr warned abuse towards his front-of-house staff was unacceptable and said that he was “disgusted and angry” with dreadful behaviour aimed at his team in recent weeks.

In a statement posted online, he said: “This is becoming far too regular an occurrence – not just in our theatre but in venues across the UK. There is a very small minority of people who come to our theatre and choose to sing, dance, and talk throughout the show in a manner that disturbs others.”

Eye poppingly, a 51-year-old man and 54-year-old woman were arrested and charged in connection with an alleged brawl during the performance of Jersey Boys.

Jersey Boys

A witness told the Daily Record: “Staff asked him to calm down but because he was drunk he took offence and started throwing punches. It took about four ushers to restrain him and then another fight broke out in the stalls.”

Oh, what a night!


Furthermore, The King’s Theatre in Glasgow issued a similar appeal on social media during the recent run of The Bodyguard, urging audiences not to sing along during shows.

This prompted my suggestion for jukebox audiences to be breathalysed. The replies in that thread are beyond grim. Smoking in the upper circle at Pretty Woman, a teenager throwing up on her friend at The Cher Show and a family sharing a pizza at Moulin Rouge!

Glasgow statement

Maddest of the lot, though, inevitably came from a poor soul at & Juliet whose skull was used to steady the person behind her, who’d left mid-show for a toilet break, I’m guessing. 

So, have audiences simply forgotten how to behave?

Alas, last year, Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye reported seeing an audience member light up a joint at Get Up, Stand Up!, the Bob Marley jukebox musical. “We were standing outside the bar and the security guards raced past us. I said ‘What’s going on?’ and they said ‘A guy’s lit up a spliff in the stalls bar.’ We could actually smell something and it wasn’t a scented candle.”

And having endured weeks of pain in the a**e punters in The Drifter’s Girl Beverley Knight tweeted: “If your intention is to come to the theatre, get rat-arsed, make a scene, disrupt the show … My advice is stay your ass at home.”

Certainly, though, research indicates that post-pandemic restrictions easing there has been a spike violent behaviour and a “reversed maturity” which has caused personalities to revert to that of a challenging toddler. Go figure.

In a sane world nobody should have to police anybody else in the theatre. Like so much these days the pleasures of the vast majority are being compromised by the thoughtlessness of the drunken minority. 

Edinburgh Playhouse

In any case, I was stunned to see bouncers in the stalls at Bat Out Of Hell – another cost to producers – in an attempt to tackle increasingly drunken audiences who misbehave during weekend performances on the UK tour.

Elsewhere, SOLT/UK Theatre are floating a ‘respect campaign’ and recently said that it was looking into the scale of the problem and described audience yobbishness as a “growing issue – that we don’t fully understand the scale of yet”.

It goes almost without saying then, moneymaking ventures like ATG’s At-Seat service providing Yorkshire crisps, Sweet Chilli Pretzels, and bottles of champagne directly to your seat pre-show and during the interval. This has a lot to do with the hellish noise and lack of consideration on display. 

Trouble is, it’s show-business and “bums on seats” that count, obviously. Ticket prices are now completely unregulated and have surged 20% from pre-pandemic levels, but that doesn’t mean people can do as they please. 

In recent times, it seems Scotland and the West End are not the only place resembling feeding time at the zoo. In a – now deleted Playbill article – the key takeaway was that since pandemic lockdowns, live Broadway audiences have got more wild, hostile and disgusting, too. 

In it, a Broadway front of house manager explains: “It’s been horrible, no two ways about it… I cannot overstate how much it changed things. A bartender at a pub has the ability to cut someone off when they’re getting too drunk; they have bouncers to back them up. Our bartenders don’t have the ability to cut someone off, because we’re told to sell as many souvenir cups as we can. I’m sure higher-ups are making money hand over fist, but we’re stuck dealing with unruly drunks almost every week.”

Audience cheer for the actors at the Richard Rodgers theatre towards the end of the first return performance of Hamilton, as Broadway shows re-open

All this got me thinking: is it time to give persistently antisocial audiences a 12-month ban? Maybe.

Often theatre is all about being in the moment — in a public space — don’t forget that everyone has their own moments!

In the meantime, here’s my theatregoing checklist: Arrive 20 minutes early. Phone off. Stay quiet (if you are inclined). Don’t fight – overreacting to drunks is also antisocial. No crisps. No ice. Stop rattling your jewellery. Stay awake. Enjoy the show.

In Elizabethan times audiences clapped and shouted whenever they felt like it. Sometimes they threw fruit. 

My, how far we’ve come . . .

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