Why West End's biggest stars are drawn to the East

Independent

3 days ago

London's Chinatown is in the middle of the British capital city, but it is also at the heart of another very distinctive city within a city: Theatreland.
According to trade association the Society of London Theatre, for every one pound spent on a ticket, an additional 1.27 pounds are spent at local businesses such as hotels and restaurants, and with 17.1 million people attending West End shows in 2024, the West End's economic contribution to city life, as well as its cultural one, is huge.
As well as being popular with locals, 24 per cent of all overseas visitors to London go to see a show, and with travellers from China making up a significant number of the capital's visitors, and being among its biggest spenders, a lot of those seats will be occupied by Chinese tourists.
So it is no surprise that, increasingly frequently, West End producers and performers are looking to build on that interest by performing in China.
Matilda, based on the Roald Dahl story about a book-loving young girl with magic powers, and the hugely popular The Phantom of the Opera are two shows that have recently toured China, to great acclaim. Two more award-winning hits that recently came to Shanghai Culture Square are Six and Life of Pi.
Six is an all-female pop musical, telling the story of the six wives of England's 16th century king Henry VIII, and Life of Pi is a visually stunning staging of Yann Martel's best-selling book, also an Oscar-winning movie, about a boy who survives a shipwreck.
Tom de Keyser is chief executive of Royo, a production company with offices in London and Shanghai, that has taken Life of Pi, and also the thriller Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, around China.
He said top class facilities, a rich local heritage and enthusiastic audiences made China one of the most exciting places in the world to operate.
'A few years ago, you'd only have played Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but now a lot of second-tier cities have developed fantastic state-of-the-art modern theatres and have built up a real appetite for high-quality theatre, so we will now tour for 10-14 weeks, across many different cities, whereas previously we'd only have done two or three weeks.'
Shanghai is a particular magnet for touring shows, and De Keyser called its principal venues, Shanghai Culture Square and the Shanghai Grand Theatre, 'two of the most magnificent state-of-the-art theatres I've ever seen anywhere in the world'.
Someone who has had a chance to see Chinese audiences up close and can compare them to those in the West End and on New York's Broadway is performer and recording artist Kerry Ellis, known as the Queen of the West End.
'What I love about our industry is you can connect with people whether you speak the language or not, so I love to travel and perform all over the world and China is up there with my favourite places,' she said.
Serin Kasif is business development director at Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group, which has been taking his shows and productions to China for more than 20 years.
She said the company's relations with local producers such as SMG Live were vital to its touring success in China. 'For a show like Phantom, the decision on where we go and for how long is made very closely with our partners — we don't pretend to know what Chinese audiences want, which is why we work with producers and venues on what they want, we're in constant conversation to find what is the best fit,' she explained.
Like the Really Useful Group, Royo also foresees a busy future in China. But in a nod to its roots in two countries approach, there is the prospect of some of China's top performers making the reverse journey.
'What shows we can bring here is something we do discuss a lot,' said De Keyser. 'For many years, London has been a hub of some of the world's best theatre so I think there would be real interest in bringing Chinese theatre here, partly for the Chinese population, but also because of so many British people's interest in a culture as rich as China's.'