ALW: “I will sell my theatres”

I think dear old Andy or whoever operates him and his PR needs to think about the optics of this.

Of course there would be buyers, he's got the Palladium and Drury Lane to name but two. Access Entertainment would be my guess if push came to shove as he won't likely sell to ATG or Trafalgar.

The problem with him saying that he'll sell his theatres is that he's used it as a threat before and when you've used it as a threat multiple times, the messaging loses its impact.

I do get his frustration but some of his rhetoric in recent months has been downright xenophobic at times, things like the Chinese want to buy our theatres panders to the readers of the Telegraph for example but you have to wonder if others are looking at Andrew and face palming at his comments,

What reaction is he expecting to this other than 🤷🏻‍♂️?

Maybe he will haunt one like The Phantom.

ALW is rich but the fact that Sunset Boulevard lost money is evidence he's not good at managing his finances. 

I have a subscription to The Stage, and have read the article. It's nothing new - veiled (and not so veiled) threats to take Cinderella to Broadway *now*, and ensure all the profits from it go/remain overseas. Bizarre rhetoric about 'I'm a composer, I only own the venues to say "thank you" to an industry I adore' (why the high rents then, eh, Andy?), and the usual "I don't want foreigners to end up owning the venues" nonsense. It is, to be frank, not the best written article I have ever read - there seems to have been no challenge to anything he's said, at the very least...

Setting aside the fact he’s said this so often I’m sick of hearing it, it’s not much of a threat is it ? Why should we care who owns the theatres ? If he sells them to some other operator so what ? If he was saying he’d have to close them it would be slightly more effective.

If the internet is to be believed, ALW is worth $1.2 billion, and yes, some of that will be tied up in property, such as theatres, but the idea that he's hard done by is not fooling many.

I take the point that it's good that someone is keeping the conversation going about the challenges facing the industry, but by centring himself, he's possibly undermining actual valid arguments.

I remember a few years ago him moaning about how much tax he had to pay and that the tax rates needed to come down because they were cramping creativity. Why should he bother writing stuff that will make him millions if the nasty government wants a share to spend on hospitals or education, or to one day subsidise his own industry when times are hard.

I should perhaps be kinder as I have a relative who works for the vet practice that looks after some of his race horses, and I drank some of the champagne he was given as a festive gift the Christmas before last. I'm sure I had some of his ham once too. However, it reminds me that he owns very expensive race horses, so perhaps sell them to "foreigners" first if he's that concerned about the welfare of people working in theatre.

Think the race horses is more to do with his wife Madeline and is her passion.

Andrew is all about money, it is his prime driving factor.

Good example of this is: If you go to the Tate National Gallery on the Milbank and to be more precise go into room 3 at the back there is a fine painting by Canaletto which is called ‘London: the New Horse Guards from St James’s Park C. 1752-53. In the bottom corner of the description of the painting says it is on long term loan from Andrew Lloyd Webber. On the face of it, it seems a terrific act of altruism, giving a fine painting by one of Italy’s finest Venetian artist, to be viewed by the public for no charge, surely how very selfless and generous. But wait this painting is no more than part of a investment portfolio, storing this painting on his own property would attract hefty insurance, which would then not make it a shrewd investment.

There are many painting in both the Tate and National on Long Term Loan for this very reason.

ALW once said that he'd be a lot wealthier if he just stuck with composing rather than branch out into producing.

One exception to that is the London Aspects (though it bombed on Broadway, London had a respectable run and turned a profit). But that was before Biddy Hayward, who ran a tight ship at RUG, got the unceremonious (and ungrateful) boot from ALW.

ALW after Sunset blamed everything on not having enough time to do everything because he was also the co-producer, but then that didn't stop him doing that time and time again (and he used exactly the same excuse with LND).

Some of his stories/explanations are, unsurprisingly, wildly inconsistent. He says on the one hand that Sunset was too expensively produced and that it was lunacy to budget it at 85% capacity. But he knew that it was expensive and didn't care. When Billy Wilder saw the original version at the Adelphi, he said to ALW that they needed to have the Isotta Fraschini in the return to Paramount scene. So ALW then goes to his production team and says we need the car and asked the production supervisor to sort it out. The car cost $150,000 and appeared only very briefly!

Cameron said he parted ways with co-producing with ALW because he didn't want to work with another corporation (although ultimately he did with Disney, though that was a forced marriage). Frankly I think we know the answer to 'what if Cameron had produced Sunset' - we'd certainly not have got that lush orchestra at the ENO a few years ago. We'd have got this staircase for the 21st century instead of John Napier's creaky, outdated set: