Stage Door Theatre, Dury Lane

Might have read the info on Instagram wrong but I think Marry Me A Little is it's first show.

They've had problems with ticketing because their payment provider thinks that some of the work is too sexual in nature - they've since backed down, but it did cause a problem for the venue.

www.thestage.co.uk/news/theatre-producer-accuses-payment-site-stripe-of-censorship

While I understand everyone's shock, those kinds of wages are certainly not exclusive to this production. Many fringe venues pay less or occasionally nothing at all!

I never said it was right, but it does commonly happen so this is not the only production at fault.

I think really, going forward, actors in the UK need a stronger union. Maybe even bring back the days where you needed an equity card to work professionally.

The US has an ok system for this, but there are still loopholes even there that producers can take advantage of.

But then it also calls into question the state of the industry for actors. The market is flooded and so the workers lose value because there are too many. This isn't aided by the increasing numbers churned out by drama schools each year.

And (slightly unrelated), it starts at school as kids. We have a strange system in schools nowadays where kids who do drama or musicals in school are encouraged to go to drama school etc. It's bizarre. Kids who enjoy football aren't expected to go off and sign with a major football team by the age of 20. We need to tell kids that theatre CAN just be a hobby, and try and get some level of control back over the industry before it continues to lose the run of itself and mount hundreds of unpaid productions just to give people something to do.