The SW1 party season is currently in full swing. Ahead of The Spectator’s own shindig last night, Mr S hopped in a cab over to the sumptuous surroundings of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opening up for the first time after a two-year £60 million renovation. Laughter, music and the popping of champagne corks echoed around the Georgian building, which Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall toured last month.
But while the stage itself was stunning, all is not well behind the scenes. The theatre industry is in crisis at the moment, with Andrew Lloyd Webber – Drury Lane’s owner – forced to cancel the opening of his long-awaited musical Cinderella this week due to a Covid case. Lloyd Webber, ennobled by his friend John Major, told Steerpike of his anger at the government’s response to the plight of his industry and confirmed that were he still in the House of Lords, he would resign the Conservative whip in protest.
Despite invitations to meet, no one from the current administration was scheduled to attend the reopening when Mr S spoke to the composer. He said:
I’m afraid with this government, it falls on deaf ears. There’s nobody from the government who has bothered to turn up here today. Of course you’d invite the Culture Secretary, of course you would invite them but despite the fact that this has been the biggest restoration of a historic building that has gone on with no support from the government whatsoever. For a Conservative government to ignore this sort of thing and also not to realise the economic importance of theatre – I just don’t think anybody in the Treasury can really have gone through what the figures are.
The impresario pointed out the impact the current theatre restrictions are having on businesses based in London’s West End and that revenues for the Lion King stage production have outgrossed the entire Harry Potter franchise. Not for nothing did film giants Disney did ask Lloyd Webber for his advice on launching a theatre division. He said of the government:
They’re either economically illiterate or they’re philistines or probably both. They don’t want to sit down with anybody from theatre, they’re not interested. I’ve never known – what I find so sad in a way is that there’s nobody from this current government that’s come, however throughout the day we’ve had one or two extremely prominent former members of government.
Ouch. Steerpike imagines Oliver Dowden will have a hard time getting free tickets to his next West End show of choice.
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