The Business of Musicals (In Venn Diagrams)

From Time

Holler if Ya Hear Me, the Broadway musical inspired by the music and lyrics of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, will close July 20 following weeks of poor ticket sales and mixed reviews.

This can be explained with the following venn diagrams:-

There's also this one that applies to the Spider-man musical:-

And three that explain the success of the dreadful Mamma Mia

Mamma Mia!

Her Indoors and I went to see this musical this afternoon, and I must confess to having thoroughly enjoyed nearly every minute of it (it knocks spots off the film) except for the bit at the end where they keep doing curtain calls, coming back onstage and doing another song, final round of applause, then they come back onstage and do another bow and so on ad nauseam, this ritual did drag on rather.

"We will rock you"

I took Her Indoors to see this musical for an early birthday present, and although I despise musicals in general and don't particularly like the music of Queen in particular, I must admit it was quite a pleasant experience.

Two points to note:

1. For some reason, they have done their best to airbrush Queen's bass player John Deacon out of history.

2. Unlike 'British' films or 'British' theatre productions (the quality of which is inversely proportional to the amount of subsidies they get), musicals do not get a penny in subsidies, but somehow, these theatres are more or less sold out, week after week and year after year, despite their high ticket prices (£60 for the front rows appears to be normal). If popularity or profitability is a measure of quality, then they beat 'Briitsh' films and 'British' theatre hands down. People flock from all over the world to see them, which in turn is good for our balance of trade and hotels in London etc.