Stephen Mangan wades into West End ticket price row and warns theatre could become 'a playground for rich people' as he hits out at audience behaviour and says they 'don't appreciate they're in the same room'

Stephen Mangan has criticised the price of theatre tickets, warning London's West End does not 'want to end up like Broadway' and 'become a playground for very rich people.'  

Tickets for recent West End shows such as Inter Alia starring Rosamund Pike topped out between £278.50 and £298, while a seat to watch Sarah Jessica Parker making her West End debut in Plaza Suite earlier this year cost £395. 

Stephen, 58, is currently starring in a 14-week run of The Truth, Florian Zeller's marital comedy about two unfaithful couples, at the Apollo theatre in the West End.

Tickets for his 90-minute, interval-free play cost from £20 to £115, modest by West End standards, and something the actor passionately supports. 

'Some theatre tickets are eye-wateringly expensive,' he said in an interview with The Times. 

'But you find that in sporting events, in restaurants, it's a problem across the board. I sometimes see a show I want to go and see and look at the price and think, who can afford £250 for one ticket?'

'We don't want to end up like Broadway,' he added. 'If theatre becomes a playground for very rich people, it will become incredibly dull, incredibly quickly.' 

Stephen also criticised the behaviour of some theatregoers, following in the footsteps of Rosamund Pike who recently berated an audience member for texting during the finale of her 'devastatingly emotional' West End performance.

The actress and producer, who plays a Crown Court judge in Inter Alia at the Wyndham's Theatre, returned to the stage after the curtain had fallen, hushing the applauding audience to tell the texter they had 'broken the bond' between cast and audience.'

Stephen pointed out that as an actor 'you sometimes feel as if the audience don't appreciate that they're in the same room. If they pull out a phone and start texting, we're right there. We can see it.' 

'I did a play on Broadway in the round [The Norman Conquests in 2009]. Someone on the front row just put their two feet up on the stage,' he went on. 

'You wouldn't walk into your accountant's office and stick your feet on his desk. Anyway, I kicked the feet off the stage. That was the end of that.' 

A survey conducted in 2025 found that the most expensive tickets to West End events had risen by five per cent on the previous year.

One example saw the price of attending a production of Giant, starring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, rise to as much as £436 through dynamic pricing in April 2025.

Earlier this year, the Young Vic's artistic director Nadia Fall claimed prices were at a 'tipping point' as London risked edging towards the cost of attending a Broadway show.

She also warned that overly expensive ticket prices could leave producers and actors with 'heartburn' as they battle to put on a show that justifies the cost.

'It does make my eyes water and it does make me a little bit frightened when I look at Broadway and see tickets for $400 being the norm, up to $700,' Fall said at a launch event in April.

Doctor Who actor David Tennant, 55, is another high profile star to call out the price crisis, dubbing ticket costs 'ludicrous' while warning that theatres were pricing out a younger audience.

He said: 'Obviously I would like to imagine that's something that everyone should be allowed to enjoy, and yet when I'm in a show in the West End, I'm aware that there are tickets selling for ludicrous amounts of money.

'But they get sold, at which point you think: "Well, what's the theatre management meant to do?" If it's a commercial enterprise, should they be expected to give tickets away?'

'The danger is you're strangling the next generation of an audience coming through.'