The West End is known for its crowds of people milling about aimlessly but yesterday saw a particularly large group of bewildered loiterers as a massive power cut shut down part of Shaftesbury Avenue. Shops, theatres running Wednesday afternoon matinees, cafes and restaurants all went dark and basically out of business between 9.45am and 5.15pm. Hit particularly hard was a party of 500 Westminster pensioners to whom Sir Cameron Mackintosh had donated free tickets to Les Miserables; the show didn't go on and they didn't get to go in. The naughty puppets of Avenue Q were also shut down for the afternoon.
Energy company EDF is getting a good shouting at by Cameron Mackintosh Ltd and Councillor Danny Chalkley, the former offering a brief, weary comment on the "monotonous regularity" of these large-scale power cuts. The latter is more verbose in his quote to The Stage newspaper, bringing in 1) the recession 2) the economy 3) the value of the theatre industry and 4) the disappointment of 500 elderly Westminster residents as reasons why EDF must avoid further power cuts in the future.
