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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 27 February 2009

Greedy in Theatreland

• I HAVE been a West End theatregoer for over 45 years but am sickened by the greedy producers and the continual ripping-off of the poor paying public.
I recently went to the over-hyped Oliver! (my grand-daughter wanted to see it, even though it is a heated up version of the 1994 presentation).
I had to pay £2 extra per ticket on top of the extortionate £60 face value of the ticket and this was through the box office. I also had to pay a handling fee for postage. Why does one have to pay a fee to book tickets when one is not using an agency?
We saw Wicked the other day. The only programmes on sale were £7, so if one likes a reminder of ones visit and cast details etc one has to buy a programme. (In America they give them away.)
Now I see a lot of theatres are sneaking in premium seats – a block of centre stalls where in the case of Priscilla Queen of the Desert I noticed they are £35 above normal price – £95. I saw No Man’s Land and the premium seats were £65.
Who introduced this and why?
They are taking up normal seats for this so they can extort even more from us.
The West End is far too expensive these days.
In the past musicals, and plays for that matter, would run for a year to get their money back but it seems greedy producers want it back in six months or less.
Oh, and finally, tickets sometimes have “£2.75 (or something) towards theatre restoration”.
It’s the limit when greedy producers (there’s a theme here) buy up the West End then want the public to pay for their renovations!
Just how greedy can you get?
EM Beazley
Norfolk

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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