Why BETM Continues in the UK?

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Eltonjohn
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Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by Eltonjohn »

Has the following already been discussed already ?....

Why is it that the show continues to draw audiences (booking through to the fall of 2015) in the West End but it petered out on Broadway?
BETM: "the most expensive school play ever."
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in Playbill October 2008
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porschesrule
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by porschesrule »

There are many reasons, which I'm sure we'll hear from the many knowledgeable members of this forum.

One of the biggest reasons, however, has to be cost. The labor costs alone are considerably more for a Broadway show than for one in the West End. The unusually large child cast and the need for multiple casting of some of those child roles, the training required, and all the other support they required made it a very expensive show on Broadway compared to in England. I've read where they pay child cast members "peanuts" compared to the much higher salaries demanded by Equity contracts in NYC and elsewhere in the US.

I don't think I've ever seen comparative weekly revenues for the London production of the show, but the Broadway numbers were published weekly and are public information. I remember reading at the time of the BETMNY closing announcement where a producer mentioned that if the show had an average gross of $700K a week, that wasn't enough to make ends meet (the show grossed over $1M a week for many weeks in the first couple of years).

I think another very significant reason is cultural. BETM is a British show and many of the theatre-goers in London are British. While I think the creative people in the US and other places where a production of the show has been mounted did a very good job of adapting to their audiences and there are definitely universal themes in the show that play well elsewhere, I think the "Englishness" of the show in London is a different atmosphere than when the production is in another country.

A third reason (and then I'll shut up an let others add to the discussion) is the huge amount of school groups that pack the matinees every week at the VPT. That never was the case in the US. Again the coarse language etc. is culturally accepted differently in Great Britain than it appears to be in the US and that has been frequently cited as a reason why schools in the US haven't as enthusiastically embraced the show as they have in London.
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jen
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by jen »

Think it could also be that Billy Elliot is a book they study at school it can bring in history as well
It is a great show that people do come and see. Because it's not
just a show for adults, or just for children, or just for people that
like theatre, I'd say for everyone, and it's got so much emotion
behind it. Because who ever comes and sees it, feels the story -
so I think: it's brilliant!" (GM)
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Billy Whiz
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by Billy Whiz »

porschesrule wrote:I think another very significant reason is cultural. BETM is a British show and many of the theatre-goers in London are British.
This is true to a point but you hear every language imaginable when you go to the VP. They also get a lot of school parties from other countries. I have lost count of the number of Americans that I have sat next to at the theatre. I was sat next to a couple from New York state only last week and the gentlemen had seen the show many times - but, strangely, none of them in NY.

As porschesrule states, the NY show was very expensive to run and it got to the point when the outgoings were greater than the income. To quote Mr Micawber:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six. Result happiness.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six. Result misery.”

It now looks like some Regional Productuctions of BETM are going to take place in the USA and I think, for the forseeable future at least, that that is the only BETM American fans are going to see.

It would be fantastic if it does go back to NYC one day - but I'm not holding my breath.
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by kport »

An interesting question.

Several hypotheses:

-Broadway costs are higher than London's. (I have heard this stated but cannot back it up.)

-London, and the Victoria Palace Theatre, have a stronger relationship with, and commitment to, this musical, its writer, its composer, its choreographer and its director.

-the story has strong connections with modern British history. It is not a 'foreign' story.

-London has a vibrant tourist population; attend any show and many there are many tourists who seek out West End shows.

-the VPT/BETM experience is less formal than Broadway; no dressing up etc for the audience.

-last minute reduced price tickets are easily found.

-Not a criticism of the Broadway production, but the West End show is always well produced. It is 'reliable'. I have heard of very few criticisms of the production.

I am sure there are many others, but in general I would say it is because BETM has the home field advantage.
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by Borrobil »

This is more a thought and I hope I'm three decades behind. I'd be interested how you in the States think. I have the impression (probably from movies of the 1970's, to 2000's) that a lot of the Americans on the middle or higher rungs of the employment ladder, (the main theatre goers), see the communist/socialist (even anarchist) ways of the miners as unthinkable for the American people.
That could mean less understanding of how the community worked. (I guess that's why Angry Dance involves the whole community in the US version).
Europeans are less likely to find communist views so bad even if they don't go along with the politics. They can empathise with the story without thinking. (eg. Everyone uses the Co-op here, there's even co-operatives for posh people. Do they have them in the States?)

Similarly I wonder, from this side of the pond, if an American teacher will take their class to a play sympathising even slightly with the communists, even today; when they could just as easily see Jersey Boys. It certainly would not be an issue in most of Europe or Asia. I may have been fed bad propaganda of course.
~ Paul ~
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jen
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by jen »

I think you are on the right lines there. I think if BE had come out while Maggie was in power then it wouldn't have worked
It is a great show that people do come and see. Because it's not
just a show for adults, or just for children, or just for people that
like theatre, I'd say for everyone, and it's got so much emotion
behind it. Because who ever comes and sees it, feels the story -
so I think: it's brilliant!" (GM)
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by kport »

jen wrote:I think you are on the right lines there. I think if BE had come out while Maggie was in power then it wouldn't have worked
There would be no BETM had MG not been elected. In a way, the story is as much a 'tribute' to her legacy, as it is a criticism. I suspect she would be bemused by all the fuss (and not a little disapproving).

I could write a book - and bore you all(!) - on this topic; but I will leave it at this: Europeans understand socialism and social democracy, and Americans (on the whole) do not. That is a massive overstatement; but take it for what it is. The closest Americans came to it (in terms of popular culture) would be Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, the New Deal, Porgy and Bess, Paul Robeson, John Steinbeck, Aaron Copland and so on. The prosperity boom of the post war era propelled most Americans from a working class to a consumer class, which dispelled the purpose of unions for many who became middle class because of them. Britain did not share the same post-war boom as America, and turned instead to socialism, unions, the NHS, a social safety net, and to some degree a retention of the spirit of austerity - 'Waste not - want not', all the time seeing its vast Empire end bit by bit while the US built its own variation through the Marshall Plan and military strength. MG embraced the notion that Britain could also share in a booming consumer class, and that post-war socialism must go to make this happen; hence the attack on the NUM, British Steel, council housing, and other aspects of the post war socialism (the NHS was considered sacrosanct).

1984 in County Durham would have been understood by Woody Guthrie. Few places in America would have understood the miners; strike, except perhaps those in tune with Caesar Chavez's activities in California. Americans have neither embraced nor encountered political social democracy since the 1930s New Deal. It has, at times, labelled socialism as antithetical to America's values.

I found it enlightening to listen to comments from bejewelled audience members in tonier settings such as West Palm Beach and Naples as they read the notice boards explaining the history of the miners' strike; they were always dispassionately interested, as though it were all a fiction, and certainly not a part of their history or background. The same might be said for ordinary Americans, even those of us sitting in the cheap seats. We simply do not 'get' socialism as anything other than something we should not like. Until, that is, we consider Social Security, Medicare.....................
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by angelenroute »

I disagree a bit with the last, but some of what you say could certainly make up some feelings of older conservative theatregoers too. I think it's just our foolish Americacentricity. Give us a British accent in a Mary Poppins, and we tilt our heads back with a laugh. Give us angry chants in protest against a foreign government from the mid-80s and we ask, "Is Mary Poppins still playing?"
kport
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Re: Why BETM Continues in the UK?

Post by kport »

angelenroute wrote:I disagree a bit with the last, but some of what you say could certainly make up some feelings of older conservative theatregoers too. I think it's just our foolish Americacentricity. Give us a British accent in a Mary Poppins, and we tilt our heads back with a laugh. Give us angry chants in protest against a foreign government from the mid-80s and we ask, "Is Mary Poppins still playing?"
I did say it was a broad generalization, as are most sweeping statements. Interestingly I did encounter only one individual (in 50 odd BETM Tour performances)who railed on at quite some length about the miners' needing to be thrown out of work because the pits were not profitable (this was the last performance in Hartford, in fact), much to the embarrassment of his wife. I did note a tea party badge on his lapel!

Returning to the point of this thread, I was generally pleased how well the story went down across America. I put this down to the musical itself, and its actors, rather than the history behind the musical. It does not have to be seen in its historical context to work. At the end of the day, it ended because it could not be financially sustained.
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