Andrew Lloyd-Webber launches theatre title

Theatre impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber’s company The Really Useful Group is launching a magazine for lovers of the stage.

Theatregoer is scheduled to hit the newsstands on October 1. The monthly magazine will also be distributed through Really Useful Theatres as a replacement for existing theatre programmes and through subscription. The magazine will be made up of 19 pages of advertising and 33 pages of editorial which are to change each month.

Writer and director Ruth Leon has been appointed editor. Theatre critic, biographer and broadcaster Sheridan Morley has been signed up to write profiles for the title, which will also include behind-the-scenes gossip and interviews.

Additional pages will be inserted for each of the Really Useful Theatre’s 13 theatres carrying the cast list relating to the production being staged at that venue.

Really Useful Theatres is a joint venture between Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and NatWest Equity Partners. It was set up in January to manage ten theatres acquired from Stoll Moss Theatres and three others in which Lloyd Webber has a stake.

Lloyd Webber says: “When the Really Useful Group acquired these wonderful theatres I wanted to improve the quality of the theatregoer’s night out. London has had no theatre magazine for years now.”

The magazine will be priced at £2.75 compared with programme prices of £2 to £3 and circulation is expected to exceed 80,000 – the number of programmes currently sold at Really Useful Theatres.

Axon Publishing has won the contract to produce the magazine and to handle advertising.