SIR ALAN AYCKBOURN will break his vow never to return to the West End because London’s theatres need him, he said yesterday.

The playwright, speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said that he had “forgiven” the West End and that he felt a duty to take his plays there.

“I like to think my plays bring people back to the West End. I think it’s a terrible sign when musicals are holding things together. Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You are entertainment but I’m not sure they’re theatre,” he said.

Sir Alan, 64, whose work is the most frequently performed after Shakespeare, gave up on London in October in protest at the way his Damsels in Distress trilogy was treated. Producers, including Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group, decided to confine two parts to Saturday matinee performances without consulting him.

His recent play Sugar Daddies will come to the West End in March on the condition that he retains control over the production. The play will run in a smaller venue with its original cast rather than be recast for a large-scale performance. “I have reached the stage where I can have my plays done how I want them to be done,” he said.

He added that there needed to be a revolution in London’s theatres if they were to return to the glory days. “They ask where the ordinary people are now. They’re all watching television,” he said. “If I were running a West End venue I would serve lunches and provide lunchtime shows. At the moment they stay dark all day.”

He is artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where the majority of his plays are premiered.

He told an audience at the Book Festival yesterday that cuts in funding for regional theatres — the traditional testing ground for West End productions — meant a dark future for the West End.

He blamed Arts Council England for failing to support young playwrights and causing London’s theatres to rely on star vehicles to attract audiences.

He stood by his comments that big names such as Madonna should not be expected to deliver a good stage performance. “You would no more ask her to come on stage than you would your local chemist,” he said.

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