Fagin Hell- We've Been Robbed.

Aren't the Joseph kids paid in "experience"?

Mama, don't you say in your show - "The experience will be their pay".

When I was a kid I didn't get paid for any of the shows I was in...usually there was a 'donation' to the 'school'.

Like those kids, I'd do it for free. It's awesome fun.

Though...I'd have liked some sort of cushion on those HELLISH benches for the Joseph choir. So. Painful.

Twenty pound does seem kind of lousy though. Shouldn't the fee be 50% of what ever the adult rate is?

Updated On: 1/20/09 at 01:41 AM

I thought the coach kids (who just do the opening) were not paid at all, like the Joseph kids who get taken to dinner once a month or something.

Surely the Olivers and Dodgers ought to get full rate (knocked down for however many shows they do)....

According to the press today, the Oliver's and the Artful's get £60 per show, the gang members get £20 and the workhouse kids, who are only in the theatre 1 hour, get the free transport. It also says that when the producers brought 'Billy Elliott to the stage they decided to ignore the Equity ruling of the kids getting half the adults pay as they were all, every single kid, a major part of the story telling. In doing this they decided to pay the kids well above the Equity requirement and its rumored they get around £200 a week.
They deserve more than that if you ask me after seeing the show 3 times now.
Cameron's office only replied with the answer that they were within Equity ruling and commented no further.
My question to Cameron is, are the kids in 'Oliver! not a major part of the story telling too and should be on more than they are being paid at the moment?

Updated On: 1/20/09 at 06:56 AM

I'm sure that like all good Fringe productions Cameron is covering the travel expenses now but at the end of the run all the children will be part of the profit-share......


Either that or it's part of the children's introduction to Method Acting:

'So my boys to fully appreciate the Dickensian conditions of child exploitation you must dance for the nice Ladies and Gentleman wot have paid £60 a ticket; and if you do it well?, well I'm sure they'll be a shiny 1-6 weekly travelcard* for your troubles....., oh and while your not on stage those footballs are going to stitch themselves......




*actually let's make that a 1-6 Day Travelcard






*did I say Zones 1-6 I meant 1-2






*(and it's a bus pass)

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Now don't be like that. He's given them all a free programme.

Well, half price.

When they spend over £75 on other Oliver! merchandise.

Though reports that a 'Local Hero' had to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre on her partner in the Liverpool area after the man nearly chocked to death on his morning Toffees after discovering that a rival theatre producer was actually paying any member of the cast £20 a performance are yet to be confirmed.....

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Well, if it's all in line with Equity rules then there's not much to be said, I guess.

I do see now why he wasn't able to bring this production to Broadway after it played the Palladium. He'd never be able to afford that many American kids.

Equity rules that they can't do more than 4 shows a week, though this is more a Government condition. Penalties are heavy foe noncompliance.
Equity cant, and doesn't, have specified payment levels- merely guidelines for each producer.

A cast recording?! I'm buying it. Well, I'll download the tracks that little Welsh twat isn't on.