Our gift to you ... The original cast of The History Boys. Photograph: AP/Dima Gavrysh
An advert in Monday's Guardian offered theatregoers purchasing top-price seats to Alan Bennett's The History Boys at Wyndhams Theatre a free gift: a copy of Bennett's new book, The Uncommon Reader. The incentive is perhaps a reflection of the fact that the National might be a wee bit nervous about the return of a play that although wildly successful may have reached saturation point with London audiences. Particularly when you can stay home and watch the film version, which is the stage play with added scenery.
Although the concept of free gifts when you buy a magazine subscription or take out an insurance policy are common, there are only so many bottles of Britney's perfume or alarm clocks a girl can stockpile. I certainly can't remember coming across the practice in the theatre before. But it opens up many juicy possibilities, such as a free dish of pilchard curry for those attending performances of Abigail's Party, free drugs with Rent, or the opportunity to win a holiday in Denmark if you go to Hamlet. Of course a free estate agent with Glengarry Glen Ross might be a disincentive to book. Menopause the Musical offered its audience the chance to win M&S vouchers (presumably based on the study that found that most women would rather have a trip to M&S than have sex, although if the study had only penetrated further it would surely have discovered that more women would rather go to M&S than see Menopause the Musical).
When I was at the Roundhouse a few months ago there was a questionnaire from a City University postgraduate who was conducting a study into incentivising word of mouth recommendations at the box office. The idea - as I understood it - was that at the point of booking the person paying would say "my next door neighbour recommended that I should see this," and bouquets and five pound notes would then wing their way towards that person. The difficulty is that while it is easy to recommend that somebody should buy the same loft extension or Ford Mondeo as you, it is much harder to recommend a theatre show. I have no difficulty writing reviews for the Guardian because it is for a broad audience, but when people ask me to recommend a show for their aunt Agatha I find myself at a loss because I don't know said aunt and her tastes.
In the end I don't see the free gift idea really catching on. Particularly not in the West End, where you have to take out a second mortgage to take the entire family to see Hairspray. (And we have. Twice. And it has made us happy but debt-ridden.) It's not free gifts, but cheaper seats that will attract queues at the box office and repeat business.
