West End or Test End?

Soaring US costs mean that producers are trialling shows in London - but shouldn't British audiences see polished Broadway hits, not flawed early drafts

- Alice Saville

“I’ve only been in London for three weeks,” says Mark Cortale.

“But now that I’m here, I never want to leave.” He’s hardly the first visitor to fall in love with this city. However, unlike most Americans visiting London in July, Cortale isn’t here for free museums or sunscorched parks. Instead, he’s a Provincetown theatre producer who’s finding that his famously stressful profession is a little easier this side of the pond.

“Quite frankly, the model for the development of new musicals is broken in the United States,” he says on a break from steering his latest show, Maiden Voyage, at Southwark Playhouse. “It’s impossibly expensive to launch something there. It’s less than a quarter of the price in London.”

So what makes working in London so appealing for a theatre producer? It’s not the Pret a Mangers or Lime bikes. It’s the freedom from terrifying financial stakes. American theatre production costs are soaring thanks to pricy Manhattan real estate, stricter union rules, higher labour costs and audience numbers that have been slower to bounce back after the pandemic. At the same time, Donald Trump’s presidency has created anxiety around falling tourist numbers on Broadway.

Meanwhile, on the West End, things are booming: last year, theatre attendance in London reached 17.1 million, in an 11 per cent increase on pre-pandemic levels. Cortale jokes: “There was a part of me that was reluctant to do this interview because I don’t want everyone from the United States to read this and come over here!” Still, he’s far from the only American theatre producer to have had this lightbulb moment post-pandemic. New US shows on the West End this year have ranged from schlocky musicals (Clueless; The Devil Wears Prada) to hyped star vehicles (Elektra with Brie Larson) and musical theatre oddities (