There is a saying in London that only two industries are completely recession-proof: prostitution and theatre.  The record-breaking ticket sales of Phantom II: Love Never Dies (five million pounds in the first week) certainly attest to the robustness of the musical form. But is this robustness an uplifting sign of the health of British theatre, or is it the worrying result of a cynical series of celebrity-packed revivals and plentiful free advertising courtesy of license-fee-funded TV casting shows?

Connie Fisher shot to fame through the BBC’s live casting of her as Maria in the Sound of Music.  Lee Meade and Jodie Prenger followed shortly afterwards as flat-pack celebrities in Joseph and Oliver! There is no new material here: the marketing minds behind the musical industry have simply found a new way of drawing audiences to old shows. By guaranteeing the popularity of the star on television before tickets even go on sale, they can be sure that the tickets will actually sell.

This was taken a step further when Andrew Lloyd Webber appeared on Hollyoaks and ‘talent-spotted’ one of the characters with a view to ending her career as a hairdresser (or whatever Hollyoaks people do) and casting her in one of his shows.  Lo and behold, when Connie Fisher finished her contract, said hairdresser was already standing in the wings wearing the blue habit. 

And when the self-assembly star of the show is missing a bit of polish, you can just throw in a few actual celebrities to whet the audience’s appetite.  Jodie Prenger starred as Nancy alongside comedian and film star Rowan Atkinson as Fagin. The latter has now been replaced by comedian and film star Omid Djalili, who is soon to be replaced by comedian and castle fanatic Griff Rhys Jones.

On the surface, then, it seems that Lloyd Webber’s decision to release a sequel to the enormously popular Phantom of the Opera is another attempt to lure the punters into his auditoria with the bare minimum of effort, while carefully shutting the stage door on any original creative talent still waiting in the side alley.

Yet far from being stifled, new writers are blossoming: Wicked, Avenue Q, Sister Act and Priscilla have created sizeable fan bases in the past couple of years.  Meanwhile, if any of you try to get a ticket to Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (hailed as the best new play of the decade) or Lucy Prebble’s Enron, you could hardly argue that Keira Knightley’s second coming as a stage actress has stolen the attention of the playhouse audience.

The launch of Love Never Dies was a slick piece of theatre in itself.  Having treated a few hundred journalists and industry guests to a snippet of his new musical, including the leading song ‘Til I Hear You Sing, Lloyd Webber was whisked off to be interviewed by various representatives of the world press.  Within three hours, you could go on the official website and see the Lord himself cringing on stage at the number of superlatives about Phantom being smeared across the screen behind him.  Twenty five thousand people did exactly that before the end of the day.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this event was all about the composer’s reinvention as the camera-friendly face of the West End, the celebrity godfather of Shaftesbury Avenue.  In fact, the climax of Ramon Remedios’s rendition of the Phantom’s pining love song had lungs tightening all around the auditorium. By midnight, the Coney Island Waltz, the musical backdrop to the Phantom’s new home, had been downloaded nearly six thousand times.  The success of this musical will be owed to the quality of Lloyd Webber’s music, not to his celebrity status.

But if it were, this would not be a new phenomenon. In the 18th century, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was increased from a two thousand to a three thousand seat arena because of the celebrity cult of actor David Garrick. He who suggests that the Halcyon days of the West End have been lost in a quagmire of celebrity sell-outs and easy revivals is as pretentious as he is misguided. It is a typically Cantabrigian attitude that the theatre should be reserved for those who can sit through Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen without a hint of a yawn or droop of an eyelid. It is not a tragic sign of the times that it takes The Wire’s Detective Jimmy McNulty to draw viewers to the Donmar Warehouse, but a blessing that we have celebrity actors like Dominic West who are capable of bringing out the greatness in a near forgotten Spanish play.

Theatre is popular entertainment, and anything that makes it more popular should be seen as an achievement, whether it’s Rowan Atkinson doing his best Mr Bean with a pair of opera glasses in Oliver!, Harry Potter baring all in Equus, or Lloyd Webber putting together a cast made up entirely of characters from Eastenders, Corrie, and Home and Away.

Far from being a ghost of its former self, London theatre is livelier than ever.  With regards to Love Never Dies, I suggest that rather than turning up your nose at the idea of a musical sequel, you cross your fingers and hope that someone’s already bought you a ticket.  If not, you could be waiting some time.