Toy Show the Musical - Farce or Triumph

RoTelly · 22-12-2022 1:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120023030#Comment_120023030

BTW this should have happened in 2021, the 2021 budget announced in 2020 had budgeted for this move, huge question as to why RTÉ and the NCH were unable to make the move in 2021, considering that the Government had largely signed off on the move in 2018 and both RTÉ and the NCH had dozens of meetings between 2018 and 2020 to prepare for the move, along with the fact that the Budget is announced in October each year, so there is no real reason why RTÉ and the NCH were not prepared for the move considering it was on the books for a couple of years and they had advanced warning of the move in 2020 by 3 months and in fairness to the Minister she was a supporter of the plan and would be in regular contact with RTÉ.

In which case, in 2021, RTÉ needlessly spent €8m on the NSO for no good reason other than bad management from both them and the NCH. They will blame contract and pensions etc but again 2 years planning and 3 months notice for 2022 something could have been arranged were by NCH paid RTÉ over the €8m in 2021, they did not according to the RTÉ annual report for that year.

Also most of those saving are now heading back to staff who haven't seen a pay rise in a number of years. So much for the €8m in saving.

RoTelly · 22-12-2022 1:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120023183#Comment_120023183

They did that already the local DEIS schools all got a free show and they raised the roof.

GAAcailin · 22-12-2022 7:17pm

have noticed that there are 25€ tickets available now for all the remaining showings - that was not the case before all this uproar..😄

fritzelly · 22-12-2022 7:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120026377#Comment_120026377

Gonna be a few upset people who paid double that

Mo Ghile Mear · 27-12-2022 10:40pm

Anyone been to see it?

screamer · 28-12-2022 12:42am

They’ve taken the toy show and monetised it. It’s like a fund raising telethon these days. This play was just the next vain step, or misstep. They’ve completely lost their way and based on what I see on rte on toy show night, I wouldn’t take a ticket for their musical if it was given to me for free.

fritzelly · 28-12-2022 12:44am

RTÉ has questions to answer over ‘Toy Show: The Musical’ - Independent.ie (archive.ph)

kneemos · 28-12-2022 1:30am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039554#Comment_120039554

the contrary, he made clear last week that RTÉ would not be making it known how much money was wasted on this vanity project.

Up yours licence fee payers. The singing dancing was always the boring bits of the Toy Show back in the day anyway. Mostly all there is now apparently.

Demonique · 29-12-2022 5:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120013296#Comment_120013296

Except that it looks like dogsh*t, one of the songs was performed on a show a few weeks ago, kids could sing (unlike the ones Joe had on Live Line in the run up to christmas) but the song itself was dire

Someone I know who went to both TSTM and Beauty and the Beast said that BatB was better value for money despite tickets being at least twice the price of TSTM

ButtersSuki · 29-12-2022 5:07pm

RTÉ has questions to answer over ‘Toy Show: The Musical’

Eilis O'Hanlon

Money that was sunk into stage project ultimately belongs to every licence fee payer in the country

RTÉ's 'Toy Show: The Musical' was an ambitious project

Imagine you get an idea for a musical. You’re convinced audiences will love it. You still do some market research first, because putting on a stage production is an expensive business and you know that most of them, musicals in particular, fold quickly and fail to recoup their investment.

You might even remember how Lionel Bart, who was behind one of the world’s most successful ever musicals, Oliver!, lost his entire fortune backing future flops.

What producers normally do in such circumstances is try out the production in a small or regional venue to see if it works, then tweak what doesn’t, before transferring to a bigger stage if it hits the spot.

Disastrously, RTÉ didn’t do that with Toy Show: The Musical, the now notoriously troubled extravaganza based on the festive Late, Late Show favourite.

Instead, they booked one of the biggest theatres in the country to stage the production.

The Convention Centre in Dublin holds enough seats for a little shy of 2,000 people — 898 in the stalls; 1,097 in the circle. That’s a lot of seats to fill.

To put it in context, it’s bigger than every single theatre on Broadway in New York. There are only four theatres in London’s West End with a larger capacity, and they’re all putting on massive established successes such as Wicked and The Lion King. Les Miserables currently goes out to audiences a little over half that size.

Toy Show: The Musical had the additional chutzpah to open in the run-up to Christmas, the busiest time of the theatrical year, when it would be in competition with venues such as the Gaiety Theatre, which has successfully been putting on a panto every Christmas (with one gap in 2020 because of Covid) since 1873.

And all this was done during a cost-of-living crisis, when businesses are struggling as people cut back on non essentials, and might reasonably be expected to be more cautious about splashing out money on unknown properties such as a new stage musical.

Everyone in Donnybrook still seems genuinely surprised that Toy Show: The Musical wasn’t an instant smash hit.

If there was ever a parable about the arrogance of RTÉ, this is surely it.

Wasting so much of other people’s money certainly won’t stop RTÉ bigwigs putting on the poor mouth next time they come before the Government, seeking increases in the licence fee and a crackdown on those who don’t pay it

Even leaving aside the meanness of trying to muscle in on traditional panto territory at a time when theatres are only just getting back on their feet after lockdown, the sheer swaggering conceit of thinking they could waltz into this fiercely competitive market and just hoover up ticket sales beggars belief.

The bad news for RTÉ is that their woes only look set to get worse.

Last week, more performances had to be cancelled due to cast illness, some at the last minute with audience members already in their seats. Plenty of dates remain unfilled.

At some point, RTÉ is going to have to answer for how this massive white elephant made it so far without someone in a position of responsibility yelling stop before it bankrupted not only the State broadcaster’s bank balance but its reputation too.

Such a huge investment would have had to go through multiple layers of approval in order to secure the necessary funding.

Did no one at the top of the broadcaster say: “Lads, are yiz all mad?”

The thinking seemed to be that it couldn’t fail, because the Toy Show is always the most watched programme of the year, with 1.6 million people tuning in this year alone to see the Wizard Of Oz-themed special in which Ryan Tubridy starred as the scarecrow who doesn’t have a brain. (No comment).

The rates for companies wanting to advertise during these coveted slots are eye-wateringly expensive, as a desire to cling on to some nostalgic fantasy of a child-centred, child-friendly Ireland that doesn’t really exist any more has us all glued to the sofa.

True, this year’s viewing figures were down by a few hundred thousand on 2021; but if only a small proportion of that audience had been willing to buy tickets for the musical, it would easily have recouped its running costs, and then some, potentially providing RTÉ with an annual cash cow that it could milk forever in the manner of Riverdance.

The temptation to exploit its most famous property must have been overwhelming, not least with the knowledge that there was nothing stopping RTÉ from using its control of the commanding heights of radio and TV to sycophantically cross-promote its own products, as it’s statutorily permitted to do.

The question still needs to be asked: why, never having put on a musical before, would you bet the farm on getting it right first time?

That’s what the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee now wants to know.

Politicians sign off on ruinously expensive projects all the time (the National Children’s Hospital, anyone?), so are probably in no room to be throwing stones from their glass house; but someone has to make RTÉ answer for itself, because the money that was sunk into the Toy Show: The Musical ultimately belongs to every single licence fee payer in the country.

Unfortunately, the chances of getting to the bottom of what went wrong remain slim.

Rory Coveney — brother of Simon, the erstwhile Foreign Affairs Minister and current Enterprise Minister in the newly formed Cabinet — holds a senior role at RTÉ as an adviser to the director-general.

Part of his job is as a “strategic risk adviser”, so he might be expected to provide valuable insight into the thought processes which led the broadcaster to conclude that these risks were manageable and justifiable

On the contrary, he made clear last week that RTÉ would not be making it known how much money was wasted on this vanity project.

“We don’t disclose the costs of creative projects,” was how he put it bureaucratically, proving that sidestepping questions runs in the family. Coveney admitted it was “not cheap” — you don’t say, Sherlock? — but insisted that “time will tell whether it’s been a wise or unwise investment”.

These evasions are simply not good enough. The flipside to being partly funded by the public is that the public has a right to full disclosure when its money is sluiced down a drain. Instead, RTÉ acts as if funding decisions are entirely its own concern.

Wasting so much of other people’s money certainly won’t stop RTÉ bigwigs putting on the poor mouth next time they come before the Government, seeking increases in the licence fee and a crackdown on those who don’t pay it. They may say they want “reform”, but the only reform they really seem to care about is one which will compel everyone in the country with a mobile phone or tablet to pay for RTÉ services whether they choose to watch what it produces or not.

People did have a choice whether to go to the Convention Centre. They're voting with their feet to stay away. No wonder RTÉ wants to remove that choice from everyone at home.

The bits in bold re. the venue capacity v Broadway and London really show the complete arrogance of those behind this vanity project.

Demonique · 29-12-2022 5:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120016068#Comment_120016068

I want to throttle the panto dame in the gaiety ad who says "this is no ordinary panto"

Apparently it's Rory Cowan

Demonique · 29-12-2022 5:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120017404#Comment_120017404

Did you go to some musicals more than once?

phonypony · 29-12-2022 5:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044025#Comment_120044025

Ah, mammy!!

DoctorEdgeWild · 29-12-2022 5:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044039#Comment_120044039

Yeah, Heathers about a dozen times and Les Miserables around 6/7 ish. Can do 4 in a weekend really nicely in London, the only problem is the cost!! Very expensive habit.

TooTired123 · 29-12-2022 8:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120044124#Comment_120044124

Ah you’re dead right if it makes you happy. London is the best place though.

whisky_galore · 30-12-2022 10:37am

Well there you have it folks, like every other overspend likely no heads will ever roll and it'll be nobody's fault.

The LLTS is popular, to sit and watch from the comfort of your own sofa, but not popular enough for people to shell out to view an ersatz stage version. Putting all your chips on a thing that will only work in a narrow, extremly busy, window on the run up to Xmas, not at any other time of year is beyond stupid.

Cluedo Monopoly · 30-12-2022 10:46am

I'd really like to know how Rory Coveney got that "advisor" job. His brother is known for crony appointments.

Furze99 · 30-12-2022 11:08am

It's a failure because we all know the Toy Show has become a heap of shyte and is only watched for a mixture of sentimental reasons and that it's on 'free to air' TV.

RTE are guilty again of being out of touch and believing in their own publicity.

kneemos · 30-12-2022 12:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045878#Comment_120045878

As with everything successful RTE have contrived to ruin it.

hamburgham · 30-12-2022 1:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120045829#Comment_120045829

Yes, was it ever advertised…

Oscar_Madison · 30-12-2022 1:46pm

At Christmas kids and families want panto and fun not silly musicals trading on an ever stale brand of The Late Late Toy show with no toys- they had all that crap week ago with Tubridy’s 2 hour ego fest- if I were a kid I’d be bored going to such tripe

kneemos · 30-12-2022 2:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120046420#Comment_120046420

Even thinking about it for three minutes would lead to doubt.

At the very least do what the professionals recommend and try it out in a small theatre first.

Management structure looks more like a dictatorship than anything inclusive.

GAAcailin · 30-12-2022 9:08pm

Just seen an ad for it during the break in Fair City. There are still loads of tickets for the last showing at 12.30 tomorrow. Those ads during prime time tv cost a fortune, bit mad that am sure there was no cross-charging in RTE

Oscar_Madison · 31-12-2022 8:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120047647#Comment_120047647

It’s been criticised as being unfair to the Panto industry -considering they have to pay full whack -even with all that free advertising-, you’d know though that its a complete white elephant considering it wasn’t anywhere near a sellout show. Heads really should roll for this but they won’t