RUG logo. |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media |
| Genre | Theatre, film, television, video, concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing |
| Founded | 1977 |
| Founder(s) | Andrew Lloyd Webber |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom Sydney, Australia |
| Key people | André Ptaszynski (CEO) Andrew Lloyd Webber (Chairman) |
| Owner(s) | Andrew Lloyd Webber |
| Divisions | See below |
| Website | www.reallyuseful.com |
The Really Useful Group Ltd. (RUG) is an international company set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is involved in theatre, film, television, video and concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing. The name is inspired by a phrase from The Railway Series of children's stories in which Thomas the Tank Engine and other trains are referred to as "Really Useful Engines". André Ptaszynski, formerly chief executive of Really Useful Theatres, was appointed chief executive of the group in December 2005.
Contents |
The company was set up in 1977, when Lloyd Webber, frustrated with the terms of his contract with the impresario Robert Stigwood, decided to take greater control over the management of his creative works. All Lloyd Webber compositions and productions created from that point have been owned by the company.
The Really Useful Group was floated on the stock market in 1986. Four years later, Lloyd Webber took it back into private ownership, selling 30% to film and music group PolyGram to fund the cost of buying back shares. In 1995, PolyGram was bought by Canadian conglomerate Seagram, with the Really Useful stake being passed to its own film and music subsidiary, Universal. In 1999, Lloyd Webber paid $75m for Universal's 30% stake, giving the Really Useful Group 100% ownership of all the composer's works.[1]
The Really Useful Theatre Company produces and manages plays and musicals, mainly, but not limited to those written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is also responsible for licensing its productions worldwide. In the 1990s, RUT mainly produced shows on its own, but more recently has again developed partnerships with other producers and production companies, notably Bill Kenwright, to produce its works, as it had done in the 1980s with Cameron Mackintosh.
Among its productions and co-productions are:
Really Useful Films is responsible for the production of film versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber's catalogue. Until recently, these had consisted of lower budget straight-to-video versions of the shows (notably Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph), but 2004 saw Really Useful Films complete the major motion picture The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, which was nominated for three Academy Awards and three Golden Globes. The film was the largest independent film ever made, and was a commercial success.
It has also released DVD and video versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the 2001 Masterpiece - Andrew Lloyd Webber in China concert, and a musical version of the Gruffalo, with music and lyrics by Jon Fiber, Robin Price and Olivia Jacobs.
The film director Nick Morris is regularly involved with the films division.
Really Useful Records produces cast albums of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. From 1986 until Lloyd Webber regained full control of the company in 1999, Really Useful Records had an exclusive deal with PolyGram to release albums through its Polydor label. Really Useful continues to release its albums and DVDs through Universal, current owners of PolyGram. Outside of cast albums, Lloyd Webber has also produced albums for Marti Webb, Sarah Brightman, Connie Fisher, Andrea Ross and Michael Ball via the label. The Managing Director of the record division is Tris Penna, who has recently overseen the remastered and re-release of a significant portion of the back-catalogue. Long-time Lloyd Webber collaborator Nigel Wright has served as producer on most Really Useful Records albums.
Lee Mead, who won the lead role in 2007's West End revival of Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by taking part in BBC One's Any Dream Will Do! recorded a single of the song "Any Dream Will Do". The contest's third-placed Lewis Bradley and second-placed Keith Jack joined him on "Close Every Door To Me". Really Useful released the double-A side single to raise funds for the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal.[2]
Really Useful Group Theatres owns and manages seven West End theatres.
Lloyd Webber purchased the Palace Theatre in 1983, followed by the New London and the Adelphi. In 1999, Lloyd Webber and NatWest Equity Partners bought the Stoll Moss group, owners of 10 London theatres, including the London Palladium and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for £85m from Australian businesswoman Janet Holmes à Court, and formed Really Useful Theatres.[3]
In 2004, operational control of the Queen's Theatre reverted from Really Useful Theatres back to Cameron Mackintosh's Delfont Mackintosh Theatres. The transfer of operational control of the adjoining Gielgud Theatre from Really Useful Theatres to Delfont Mackintosh Theatres followed two years later.
On July 11, 2005, the company announced that it was selling four theatres (the Apollo, the Duchess, the Lyric, and the Garrick) to Nimax Theatres Ltd, a company owned by Broadway producer Max Weitzenhoffer, who previously had been a rival bidder for the Stoll Moss theatres) and Nica Burns, production director of Really Useful Theatres.[4] Lloyd Webber invested £10m of the proceeds from the sales (which took effect on October 1, 2005) to buy out his ownership partners Bridgepoint (formerly NatWest Equity Partners), and the group was renamed Really Useful Group Theatres.[5]
The company owns and manages:
In 2002, Really Useful Theatres bought a 75% stake in ticketing agency Way Ahead from ailing cable television group Telewest, which it combined with its own ticketing operation to form See Tickets[9] which was then the biggest UK-owned ticket company, selling tickets not only for West End musicals, but also for concerts, festivals, sporting fixtures and other events. On 16 October 2007 See was demerged from the Really Useful Group and a new company, See Group Limited was created to sit alongside the Really Useful Group in Andrew Lloyd Webber's portfolio. Webber sold See Group Limited to Joop van den Ende's live entertainment group, Stage Entertainment for an undisclosed sum in January 2008.[10]
Really Useful Magazines Ltd was formed in order to distribute Theatregoer Magazine, a monthly magazine edited and published on the Really Useful Group's behalf by the publishing agency Axon Publishing. Published between 2000 and 2004, the magazine was available in conjunction with the programmes in all Really Useful Theatres. Its Editor-in-Chief was Madeleine Lloyd-Webber.
The Really Useful Group has, in the past, also set up sub-labels to cater for pop and dance acts such as Carpet Records, featuring Timmy Mallett's Bombalurina ("Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini") and Doctor Spin ('Tetris'); and It Records, home to My Life Story in the late 1990s. The name Carpet Records was a play on the acronym RUG (or rug) (for Really Useful Group).
The group on 27 June 2007 announced [11] that it would donate all receipts from two special performances of a revived West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to the BBC’s Children in Need charity appeal, which would benefit from ticket sales for 16 July’s booked-out preview and the sold-out 16 November performance, on the night of the annual Children in Need telethon. Cast members, the group added, would not get the usual first night gifts on 17 July – the money would, instead, go to Children in Need. Viewers of a BBC One television show, Any Dream Will Do! had voted 25-year-old West End ensemble player and understudy Lee Mead to take role of Joseph in the production.[12] Children in Need had benefited by more than £500,000 in income from viewers' voting on premium-rate telephone lines, host Graham Norton said during the contest's 9 June 2007 final.