I have quite an admission to make. I have just spent the evening gorging on the first 8 episodes of Fox’s surprising ratings winner, Glee. I first read about the American musical comedy series on Ken Davenport’s blog, Producer’s Perspective, where he highlighted how good for Broadway the series was. Ken felt it was a great way of getting Broadway stars working in a high profile project as well as bringing musical numbers into line with pop songs and onto TV.

It would appear that the launch and marketing behind this musical theatre bonanza could not have been better primed. The pilot episode was premiered straight after an episode of American Idol in May, capturing a ready made audience of tweens, lovers of all things camp and those who appreciate a tight dance routine – the perfect musical theatre audience.

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So the Arts Council England has unleashed its plan to save theatre for the under 26′s! Its called A Night Less Ordinary and is the the scheme, as proposed in the McMaster report, to give under 26’s free tickets to the theatre. You can find out information at www.anightlessordinary.org.uk

The first thing which strikes me, and I have to say I went to it pretty quickly once I found out that the site was launched, was that there are no Liverpool theatres included in the scheme!

I am in a city which statistically is far too well served with theatres but where none of them have signed up, or have been selected by the Arts Council to be included in the scheme. I have to say I was thinking of launching a theatre podcast. I’m not sure what I was going to talk about it in but I was probably going to be doing it on a Thursday on the back of The Stage being launched as it would probably give me something to talk about. This is exactly the kind of thing that I would include in it! I might do some digging to find out from Liverpool theatres why they aren’t in the scheme. You will be the first to know.

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