Ingram reflects on the state of the West End, Broadway and beyond
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Sitting in Colin Ingram’s bright Soho offices, it’s hard not to sense the scale of what he’s built over the past two decades. His company, Colin Ingram Ltd, marks its 20th anniversary this year, and its shows now span four continents – a far cry from the one-man operation that began with a single ambition: to have his name above the title of a West End production.
“When I started, I’d worked for Cameron Mackintosh, for Disney, and a few others,” Ingram recalls. “But I always wanted to be an independent producer. I said to myself: I just want to do it once – one West End show with my name by the title. When that happened, I said, alright, now I want to do one global rollout.”
He smiles at the memory. “Once you hit those goals, you move the goalposts. But it’s important to start with ambitions that are achievable – bite-sized, not just trying to be the busiest or most successful producer in London. I was quite focused on the shows I wanted to make and the plan to get there.”
Ingram laughs that if he could go back in time – and, fittingly, he owns a DeLorean – he’d tell his younger self not to worry so much. “When you’re starting out, you worry about being an imposter, or what people think of you. But you can’t produce everything you want to. You go and see a show and think, ‘I wish I’d produced that’, but you have to stay in your lane. I think that’s been one of the reasons I’ve lasted — I’ve never tried to do too many things.”
That sense of patience and focus is most clearly seen in Back to the Future: The Musical, now a full-blown global phenomenon. The show may have taken Ingram and his team the better part of a decade to realise, but productions are now running in London, on tour in the US, Australia, Japan and at sea on Royal Caribbean. A UK tour kicks off next autumn.
“Every time you get to opening night, you wonder – where did those years go?” he says. “We had false starts. I was obsessed with the idea of opening in 2015, the 30th anniversary of the film, but Bob Gale and the creative team were more concerned about the quality, and having the right team, and they were right to be. We slowed down, and it made the show better.”
When it finally opened in 2021 – just as the West End was emerging from the pandemic – the timing turned out to be serendipitous. “It was the right kind of show for that moment. People wanted joy, nostalgia, something that reminded them of family. Back to the Future is about how one small moment can change everything — it’s about family. After Covid, that really resonated.”
The development process, he adds, is rarely quick. “You can spend a year just getting the rights. Another year to find the right writer, then another to get the composer. You’re three years in before a director even joins. But that time gives the show depth. There’s a reason audiences around the world are responding to it.”
Ingram hints that another beloved film-to-stage musical is on his slate, in collaboration with playwright Kendall Feaver, riding on a high after the success of Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre. “We’re at the treatment stage with five songs written. It’s very early, but it’s exciting to be back in a room with writers, hearing demos, figuring out if it’s going to work. You never know – that’s the thrill.”
How does he decide what to opt for next? “I’ve said in other interviews that my core demographic is a 42-year-old woman, and that’s who I want to programme for. I think 42 or 43 is the right age – women are often the ones who spend the money, they’re the ones buying the tickets. Back to the Future is definitely one that maybe swings a bit more towards men, although it’s evened out now, but really it’s women who are more often driving the box office. So you have to appeal to them with what you’re programming.
“Having shows that speak to women makes the initial sell a lot easier. My next one will very much appeal to them. I’m always looking at what will impact my 42-year-old woman ticket-buyer — what films and books came out twenty years ago, what might have stuck with them emotionally, what they’re reading or interested in now. That all informs my decisions about what to develop. I start there, and then I work from that point outward.”
For Ingram, Back to the Future’s success also revealed how much audiences have changed. “The pandemic really affected behaviour. People want to laugh. Escapism matters. The news cycle has been brutal – Ukraine, the Middle East, cost-of-living pressures – and people want to get away from that for two hours.”
At the same time, rising costs have hit the industry hard. “It’s well known that everything’s more expensive now – materials, transport, marketing. People came back after lockdown with some savings, but that moment has passed. Economically, audiences don’t have the money they did right after Covid. Despite the headlines, average ticket prices haven’t soared – producers are swallowing a lot of the cost.”
He notes that even with Back to the Future running simultaneously on Broadway and in the West End – something that hadn’t happened to him since Ghost – the pressures remain significant. “You’re responsible for so many livelihoods: the cast, marketing teams, PRs, general managers, rental companies. When you’re independent, that sits on your shoulders. It’s a lot. But if a show’s making money, you can’t dwell on it too much — you just have to keep it running.”
Ingram laughs at the suggestion, increasingly heard from US industry figures, that Broadway is in crisis. “I think it’s nonsense, honestly. The ecosystem is expensive, yes – Back to the Future was capitalised at 23 million dollars – but we gave half of that back to investors. That’s a lot better than some Tony-nominated shows I could mention. Broadway isn’t broken; it’s just expensive.”
The real issue, he says, is the shifting fabric of New York life. “Costs are sky-high, and the city’s changed. There’s been a drop in international tourism, people working from home aren’t coming into Manhattan as much, and that hurts the midweek audience. You can still fill theatres if you’ve got a Denzel Washington or a George Clooney in a play, but for new musicals, the bar is much higher. But I don’t believe Broadway will ever run out of shows. There will always be people wanting to produce there. It’s just that very few shows will manage to stay open for long.”
The touring market across the US, he adds, has tightened too. “The costs of loading in and out are up, and some big cities are struggling as they share similar issues as New York. There’s a perception issue around safety. You need to be a Hamilton or a Wicked to truly turn a profit. ”
If Broadway has its challenges, London’s theatre scene is not without its own. Ingram is candid about the need for realism. “Theatre tax credits have been a huge help – absolutely transformative – but arguably there’s too much on right now. Between the new musicals, the Palladium summer seasons, the Coliseum events, Hunger Games, Stranger Things, Starlight Express, ABBA Voyage you name it, we’re all competing for the same audience.”
The traditional summer window, he says, used to be when producers could count on strong box office. “Now, you’re switching on six, eight, ten thousand tickets every day across these big event shows. That’s a lot of competition. It’s not about being protective – it’s about being realistic about what audiences can afford, and how many nights out they’ll choose.”
He’s equally pragmatic about touring and the impact it has on the West End. “There’s a theory that touring helps the West End show, but I think it’s either neutral or slightly damaging. Eighty per cent of West End audiences are domestic. If Back to the Future is playing in Edinburgh, some people will choose to see it there instead of coming to London — and that’s fair enough. The ideal scenario is when others might see it twice, or bring new friends, and that’s great too. The key is to make sure the tour matches the quality of the West End.”
For all the global scale and big numbers, Ingram is quick to stress that producing remains a precarious business. “There have been so many tough moments — Breakfast at Tiffany’s, for example, lost huge sums each week on Broadway despite a strong London run. Ghost had a great journey but some brutal weeks on Broadway. Every producer has those. Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber have had plenty. You just learn to survive them.”
It was Ghost, he says, that taught him the business of international rollouts. “You learn that every territory has its own quirks. I came out of Ghost understanding the mechanics properly — who to trust, how to budget, how to build a long-term structure.”
Twenty years in, he’s also more comfortable in his own skin. “Self-awareness takes time. As a producer, you’re your own brand. In your 20s and 30s, you’re trying to prove yourself — to impress people. By your 40s, you start to understand yourself better. I call my 40s my golden era. It’s when everything I’d learned finally clicked.”
That maturity, he adds, makes the social side of producing easier to navigate. “It’s a very social industry – parties, networking, constant pitching. I must have spent years lobbying people about Back to the Future, taking models of the DeLorean into offices to convince them. You just keep the conversation going, because that’s what it takes.”
For now, Ingram is content to let his shows – and his company – speak for themselves. “Four million people have seen Back to the Future so far,” he says, almost in disbelief. “We’ve got productions on four continents, with Germany next. When I started, I just wanted one show with my name on it. Twenty years later, I think I can say I’ve done that – and then some.”
