In Which A Musical Might Be A Sign Of A Forthcoming Recession

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

At time of writing it's Friday evening, in fact my daughter's birthday, and as a birthday present for my daughter, wife and mother they are at the Wales Millenium Centre watching a performance of the musical Crazy For You.

When I booked the tickets in July it seemed to be the perfect extra present for them all. Given that it is a) a musical b) has two winners of Strictly Come Dancing in it. Plus as it turned out subsequently that I can spend the evening watching Portuguese football on the new FreeSports channel in peace. A win for everybody.

The seats I will say now were almost the cheapest. Budgets being tight and all that. So they were to be seated at the gods. But they would have a grandstand view of the proceedings and for all three of them it wasn't their main present, just an added extra.

That then is July. So imagine my surprise receiving an email from the Millenium Centre early this week saying that to provide "an intimate atmosphere" they offered that the three women in my life were to be seated closer to the stage. In other words they could not sell enough tickets and didn't want the cast performing in front of disheartening swathes of empty seats. Of course I accepted the offer.

Which of course brings us to the question how could a musical with a well known personalities find itself in this position on a Friday evening? Monday,Tuesday might have been more understandable. But Friday?

Well what I'm going to say next is purely my opinion and based on nothing else. For all I know I might just be talking out of my backside having put two and two together and made five. Still here I go...

For me there are two possible explanations. One is that the musical is just rubbish, that the cast could not sing and dance their way out of a paper bag and when they return I'm going to be surroundsound nagged at by three generations of my family. But I don't think so...

The second explanation is that when a recession begins people start cutting back on the "luxuries". When previous recession began I remember on the radio a cobbler phoned up to say that he knew there was an economic downturn because more people came in to get their shoes repaired rather than buy a new pair.

A high tech version of that was a report I remember at the time discussing the effects of the previous recession on the West Wales seaside town of Tenby. One of the people who profited from the situation, for the same reason as the cobbler, was a PC Repairman.

Since summer has gone (hardly was here in the first place) a trip to the theatre, even on a Friday, might become a luxury. True there was The Addams Family a few weeks before, but that was the sort of thing that could appeal to all ages. Crazy For You wouldn't appeal to all the family. If you cut "luxuries" from your budget then going to the theatre would be easily one of the first things that would go.

As I will stress again I might be completely wrong. But as we enter winter and longer nights approaches it might be worth noting of anything else suggesting that the long predicted downturn is not just occurring but starting to have an effect on people's daily lives

Until the next time.