Chance encounter | 6 September 2012

If you’re thinking of putting on a West End show, here’s what you need. Half a million quid. That should cover it. Unless it’s a musical, in which case you’ll need five or ten times as much, depending on how munificent/crazy you happen to be. Investors tend to be fretful, superstitious types who rarely make rational decisions about the start date of their theatrical ventures. No producer is willing to send 500 grand’s worth of dramatic wonderment into the skies if his rivals aren’t launching similar attractions in the same week. So the West End calendar is either overcrowded or utterly barren. Every year there are two dead zones. One is the end-of-Edinburgh lull, from which we’re just emerging. The other is the Nurofen-and-turkey-wing sabbatical between Boxing Day and 2 January.

Yet these launch-less weeks represent a tremendous opportunity. The daily papers are still being churned out. Radio stations are still cramming the airwaves with high-minded twaddle.