The West End is fine for what it is. But the real risks, the real experiments, are to be found in the fringe. “Freedom, spontaneity, risk, imaginative challenge: all these things were central to the experience of the fringe. They are all notably elusive in the other available theatrical environments, where those considerations drearily familiar from Arts Council feasibility studies – audience expectation of spectacle, long-term planning, product recognisability – reign.”