London's West End sells more tickets than the Premier League – Why do we still not take theatre seriously?

If Rachel Zegler's balcony scene in Evita or the animatronic Paddington walking the BAFTA red carpet didn't spell it out enough, allow me – we are living in a golden age of theatre.

While the echoes of COVID-19 still sit heavy in the bones of the West End, rarely have we seen an industry dust itself off and bounce back to a level like this.

This month, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) and UK Theatre published their annual report which found that more than 37 million people visited a UK theatre last year, 17.64 million in the West End alone. That, dear reader, is nearly three million more than Broadway attracts each year, and two million more than the entire Premier League.

Another independent study also found that visiting a play, musical or dance is one of the top 10 joy-giving activities we can do. This research, The Joy Test, was commissioned by Immediate in partnership with the University of Sussex, with nearly 10,000 participants exploring the motivations and emotional impact our leisure activities. Theatre ranked as number seven on a national level – and three for audiences of Radio Times.

Put plainly by Kate Varah, Executive Director and Co-Chief Executive at the National Theatre: "Those are remarkable figures, and they underline something we don’t always say loudly enough: theatre isn’t niche, it’s central to how people choose to spend their time."

And yet...

While it seems silly to compare football boots with tap shoes, there's no denying that the clamour around theatre is so much quieter. While the sport enjoys being at constant national centre-stage, theatre is so often swept aside and kept to the smaller (albeit frillier) fringes of culture and conversation.

Of course, football is far more tribal, the stakes are higher, and the drama of it changes from week to week. I'm not asking for the two to be considered equally, but right now our cultural awareness of theatre seems to be equivalent to a blade of grass on a Premier League pitch.

An obvious first step is funding. Just last week, research from Equity found that local government arts funding has plummeted 55% across Britain since 2010, down from £1.19 billion to just £539 million in 2024-25, the SOLT report also showed that 36% of theatre organisations project a deficit in 2025–26. Without funding, especially at a local level, it's hard for theatres to spread their influence among communities, to reach families and inspire people from an early age.

As Varah said: "We have to keep investing in how people experience theatre. For many, that starts young: a school trip, a family outing, or simply having access to drama and the arts as part of a broad, inclusive education. Those early encounters with live performance are often transformative. They don’t just create future performers, they often build lifelong audiences who value storytelling, creativity, and shared cultural experiences."

To make matters worse, theatres themselves are often the ones stepping up to fill the void left by local councils. Patrick Gracey, theatre producer and chair of the SOLT and UK Theatre Policy, Research, and Advocacy Committee, said: "Theatres are increasingly acting as civic infrastructure, at the same time as traditional civic infrastructure around them has been reduced – it's kind of wild.

"Examples like the Lyric Hammersmith, just yesterday announced a young people's Borough of Culture programme designed to reach more than 10,000 young people through schools, Hull Truck Theatre have developed a drama-based training programme for GPs, theatres operate warm hubs, they operate youth groups effectively, they do so much to play a role in their local town centres at a time where footfall for high streets is dropping.

"And I don't think the role that theatres play in their local community is recognised at all."

Also playing into this, is the ever-present issue of class perception, "there is a cultural perception around theatre and who the audience for theatre is" said Gracey.

You don't have to be in the theatre space to know that going to the West End is sometimes considered one of three categories: too touristy, too expensive, too posh. This is despite the fact that theatre ticket prices have actually not increased in recent years – costing £41 on average compared to the Premier League's £74. To keep the prices low, with 41% of tickets sold at £35 or less, theatres have absorbed inflation rather than pass it on, at the expense of its profit margins.

Interestingly, the SOLT report also read: "Attendance spans the full range of occupational groups and extends well beyond major cities."

So if, the prices are low, cheap ticket schemes are high, and the demographics in audiences are far more varied than we would normally believe, how come theatre is still presented as this outside, sometimes elitist past time?

Gracey looked inward, saying: "I think we as a theatre sector need to do more to celebrate the work we do, not just on stage but off stage as well and in our local communities. And I would hope that government at both national and a local level do more of the same.

"When that happens, more people in the community realise the opportunities that theatre can provide, not just for work, but also as a place to come together and to share their stories and be with other people in their community.

"I think more than anything there is a real opportunity in these challenging and divided times for theatre to be a place where people can come together and exchange ideas to hopefully find common ground."

Varah echoed this, she said: "Theatre’s superpower has always been its ability to help us understand ourselves, how it reflects the issues of the day and brings people together in a uniquely immediate, human way. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms and individualised experiences, it remains one of the few places where we gather, sit side by side, and engage with complexity together. That collective encounter is not just valuable, it’s essential to a healthy democratic society."

She also pinpointed the National Theatre's commitment to streaming and showing NT Live in cinemas as a way to broaden this sense of accessibility. Many of us will remember, during COVID, watching the like of Benedict Cumberbatch's Frankenstein and James Corden's One Man Two Governors, and feeling exceedingly grateful to have a distraction like that streamed on YouTube – anything that wasn't banana bread was a godsend.

Last but not least, there is the problem of visibility. According to Gracey "every bit of research we do shows that the best advertisement for theatre is word of mouth. Not necessarily one person speaking to another, but also that organic social media sharing, critics reviews, recommendations".

He continued: "In some ways it makes our life very difficult, our media ecosystem is a lot more fragmented and it can be harder to cut through at times. Every producer hopes for those types of moments or for those types of shows that really do cut through the cultural zeitgeist."

He referenced the likes of Jamie Lloyd's Evita and Paddington the Musical as examples that have reached national, if not global, fame in the last 12 months. Although I pointed out his own production of The Importance of Being Earnest with Ncuti Gatwa also had plenty of viral moments.

"Well Stephen Fry had just come off the Traitors!" he laughed, "but it's a role that he has wanted to play for over 10 years so I'll take it."

"The truth is you only ever know what you've got on your hands once you put it in front of an audience and the joy and the terror of making theatre is that you are reliant on an audience, and so we are constantly thinking about them. That doesn't mean pandering to audiences, but it means thinking about how we might communicate to them that this is a play or this is a musical that they would like to see.

"It might be a star, it might be a piece of IP, or it might be a subject matter. Paranormal Activity is attracting an audience who wouldn't necessarily go to the theatre right now. Or you've got a play like Dear England that had young boys and fathers who wouldn't normally visit buying tickets.

"In these challenging times right now, that entertainment element is really important to, again, to sit in a crowd of strangers and to laugh or to cheer is so cathartic."

While questions of funding, visibility and perception are still very much a challenge, both Gracey and Varah were clear that things are changing for the better, and the more open and accessible theatres become, the better it will get.

"We need to broaden the conversation. By leveraging social platforms to share behind-the-scenes moments, discussions with artists, and the social impact of productions for example, we can attract new, younger audiences and demonstrate not only the cultural relevance of theatre, but its economic and civic importance to the UK."

Plus, rays of light are already starting to shine through, as new amendments have been proposed to the English Devolution Bill to allow local councils more power to champion arts, heritage and the creative industries. Not to mention governing bodies like the Olivier Awards just launched a brand-new #LoveYourLocalTheatre campaign and touring shows like the Legally Blonde musical have skyrocketed ticket sales for smaller venues.

It seems to me that the key to growing theatre is doing something football has known all along; show-up locally, build a community and get people interested from a young age, it just needs a bit of help to get there. Plus, a few more Rachel Zegler balcony moments wouldn't go amiss.

Make sure you also check out our full guide to the best West End shows and our story of how Shakespeare ended up on an EasyJet flight.