Musical saturation

We're used to thinking of Broadway as dominated by musicals and the West End as still offering a home to plays, but the situation has changed, says Mark Shenton on The Stage Newsblog. There are currently just seven plays running in the West End's 39 venues, he says, of which only two are new (one of which is from Channel 4's The Play's The Thing).

We have not only caught up with Broadway in ticket prices, we are now in the inexorable slide to sidelining plays completely in the West End as they do on Broadway. Actually, they have as many plays on Broadway right now as we do: they, too, have seven houses currently hosting plays today (though a couple – Awake and Sing and Doubt — are about to close).