M is for Michael

And B is for Billington. The Guardian critic purviews the musical scene:

“But there's something unhealthy about a genre that persistently fails to generate exciting new work”

Unhealthy or just darn difficult?

"There seems little room any more for a musical that is not some form of cultural juggernaut or that trades on wit, lightness and charm…. But those happy days when the musical was a source of innocent pleasure seem far off." 

Musicals, even the witty, light and charming ones, are not about creating “innocent pleasure” but creating drama. Pleasure, innocent or otherwise, is a mere byproduct.

“Nowadays musicals have become so industrial in scale and expensive to produce that any form of risk has to be minimised from the start. Like the banks, musicals have become too big to fail."

The fiscal simile is misdeployed. The banks didn’t become too big to fail by minimising risk on their investments. Quite the opposite. Compared to the casino accounting some of the bankers were up to, it would have been far better if they'd sunk all their money into “Going for Gold - the new Tony Hadley musical”.

Their insurance policy turned out to be the increasingly-peeved taxpayer. As fun as it would be I doubt this will be the case if we do see more high-risk musicals. I can't imagine George Osborne announcing a special “Betty Blue Eyes” bailout.

If you’re looking for an expensive, unprofitable, taxpayer-dependent cultural juggernaut to compare to the banks, the Royal Opera House would much more on the money.