Is this the end of the West End?
Millionaire producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh was recently named as the most powerful figure in British theatre by the Stage newspaper, beating leading theatre owner Janet Holmes á Court into second place. Not satisfied with having the power, he has decided he wants the theatres too.
At the weekend it was reported that he has bought the Queen's and Gielgud theatres in London's West End. It is his first outright theatre purchase, though his company part-owns three other London theatres, and may mark a significant move towards a more interventionist style of theatre management.
'There is a shift in the balance of power in the West End,' says one industry insider. 'Mackintosh is the wealthiest figure in the British theatre [last week's Sunday Times estimated his fortune at £350 million], and now it seems he wants to control not just production but ownership too. He is already the largest player and wants to own the bricks and mortar as well.' Mackintosh has been looking to buy properties in the West End for some time, and there were strong rumours three years ago that he was about to buy the group of seven theatres currently owned by Associated Capital Theatres. But the managing director of his group of companies, Martin McCallum, insists that there is no master plan to win control of the West End and ridicules suggestions that Mackintosh is engaged in a private battle for theatre supremacy with Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose Really Useful Group owns three London theatres.
'There is no game plan,' says McCallum. 'This was simply an opportunity which arose, and it doesn't happen very often. We had the chance to acquire two important theatres and we were lucky.' The freehold was in the hands of Christ's Hospital and the theatres were leased to Stoll Moss, the biggest of the West End theatre owners.
Mackintosh has acquired a 150-year lease on the theatres, though details of the transaction remain sketchy.
It appears that Stoll Moss will retain control of programming in the theatres until 2006.
The price of the purchase has been put at £15 million, though McCallum refuses to confirm that. Stoll Moss was the underbidder, and he makes the point that its loss of the leases should not be taken as evidence of disillusionment with the West End. Stoll Moss owns the Palladium, Her Majesty's, the Theatre Royal and the Garrick, and there have been suggestions that Stoll Moss chief Holmes á Court, who spends much of her time in Australia, might be tempted to sell.
If she did, would Mackintosh want to move in? 'If those sites did come up for sale, there would be interest throughout the industry,' says McCallum cagily. 'There's always interest when a theatre comes up for sale; it doesn't happen very often.' Nica Burns, production director at Stoll Moss, rejects the reports that Holmes a Court is considering selling her remaining sites. 'Janet has been a terrific owner and has put a great deal of money in,' says Burns. 'It's a great shame that she has lost these theatres. People ring up on a weekly basis to ask if they can buy our theatres, but there is no suggestion that she is selling. The company is definitely not on the market. Maybe the day will come, but it hasn't come yet.' Mackintosh likes to present the acquisitions as the acts of a benevolent theatre-lover, rather than those of a shrewd businessman. 'This isn't a traditional business investment on our part,' insists McCallum. 'You don't look to get your money back in five or seven years. You're looking at a long-term return - a long-term commitment to theatre and to these individual theatres. We're not really business people; we're people who love the theatre and have happened to be successful in it.' In most arenas, anyone producing such statements would be laughed off stage, but Mackintosh has managed the seemingly impossible trick of making a huge amount of money while alienating no one. He really is seen as somebody who has turned his passion into hard cash, which he has then ploughed back into the business he still appears to love with the enthusiasm of the schoolboy who fell in love with musicals at the age of eight. It seems appropriate that on the day I tried to contact him, he was attending the funeral of Lionel Bart, whom he both admired and unstintingly helped.
'The purchase could be good for theatre, providing a greater measure of financial stability,' says one hardened critic. 'Mackintosh has on the whole been associated with musicals, but he is an enlightened patron and is unlikely simply to fill the theatres with more of the same. Previously, theatre owners have tended to be rather faceless chains shrouded in mystery, and it could be helpful to have producers who are owners too.
'It is part of a changing pattern for West End theatres, which increasingly are seeking to develop an identity of their own. They are no longer just garages that you hire; many theatres now have a policy about the shows they put on, in part reflecting an attempt to win a new, younger audience. The change is desperately needed. Theatres have been far too set in their ways.' The only blot on Sir Cameron's CV is that penchant for musicals. Might he be tempted to buy up large chunks of the West End and fill them with mega-musicals in the way that Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group has? 'If he only puts on musicals or his own shows, that would not be a good thing,' says one critic who would rather test Mackintosh's claimed benevolence before beatifying him.
'What the West End needs is a good, healthy variety of product,' says Equity's Martin Brown. 'It needs good musicals, straight plays, and more experimental productions coming in from the subsidised theatre in the provinces. I hope any change in ownership makes that possible. Mackintosh is a very canny producer, and I think he will be looking to put on productions in his theatres that will pull in audiences, and not just use them as vehicles for his own shows.' McCallum gives an unequivocal assurance that the theatres will not merely become homes for long-running Mackintosh musicals. 'We have always been clear that owning theatres is quite distinct from Cameron's work as a producer,' he says. 'There is no intention to use these theatres to put Cameron's productions into them. They will be completely independent. There may be situations when we do it because the theatre and the production complement each other, but that is not the purpose of buying the theatres. These are playhouses and too small for the kinds of shows that Cameron usually produces.' It would seem that for the moment Mackintosh's position as patron saint of the stage remains secure. So much for camels and needles.