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Can you hear the cheers? Can you see the standing ovation? Yes, the London theatre scene is alive and high-kicking, with a record-busting 13 million ticket sales just announced for the whole of 2007. But - wait - what's this? One little portion of the audience is resolutely sitting on their hands, scowling. Yes, it's the critics.
Their lament is as familiar as it is ugly. Dahling, we know more people are going to the theatre but they're going to mere (cough) musicals. The West End is being taken over by (shudder) coach parties from (retch, retch) Milton Keynes. They have killed Serious Theatre, and left us in a neon desert. The Lion King has eaten Chekhov. Spamalot has spammed Ibsen. Oh, how do you solve a problem like "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"
But this contempt for coach parties is pure snobbery. Audiences bussed in from the provinces for a night of fun are worth no less than those who took the Tube in from Hampstead. Are they too greasy for Grease? Do they have too much hairspray for Hairspray? Is their hair too bad for Hair? Giving anyone a good night out - two hours of live entertainment - is a valuable and precious thing to do. Every coachdweller is worth as much as every critic.
Yet beneath this class-and-regional sneering, there is a deeper contempt - for pure entertainment itself. We still seem to think that theatre has to be the Alpen of the arts, providing you with dry fibre in every dose.
Well, I love chewing over a Chekhov character's infinite flavour and complexity as much as anyone. But there is a lot to be said for just cheering people up and sending them out with a tune they can hum.
Stand outside the doors to Grease or Wicked or Dirty Dancing any night of the week, and you will see cascades of buzzing, humming crowds awash with endorphins. Why should anyone feel bad about that?
And musicals can have hidden depths. You may think they are silly or superficial or saccharine, but remember: Mozart's The Magic Flute is about a magic flute. People thought that was frivolous and empty, too, once upon a time. Today, only a philistine would deny that Rogers and Hammerstein or Stephen Sondheim are among the greatest artists of the 20th century.
It is time the jeering, groaning critics of musicals were sent on a coach trip of their own - to a retirement home.
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