Each Monday, our Money team speaks to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. This week, we chat to Aaron Archer from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Mamma Mia! about life as a West End performer…
There’s no such thing as a starting salary in the performing arts… A job may be an equity contract with a union that sets out minimum salaries depending on the size of the theatre or the amount of work and many other varying factors. Or it could be a privately/commercially financed job, meaning the salary can vary hugely. All equity minimum figures can be found online but it can range between £600-900 roughly a week for an ensemble member in a West End show. Again, this figure can vary below or above this. The principals will earn a higher salary as well as people who cover other roles or have extra responsibilities such as being the dance captain.
You don’t necessarily have a stable income to rely on… Contracts can differ in length from just a few days to a year or more.
Many performers have another job on the side… to supplement their income, as sometimes you can’t solely rely on the earnings from performing.
People might look down at a cruise ship contract… but these performers are extremely talented and earning money doing the job they love just the same as somebody in a show in the West End, with the cruise ship job paying more than a West End contract sometimes.
A usual week consists of eight shows… but over busy periods extra shows can be added. With most shows being around two and half hours, as well as any additional rehearsals, we are working between 35-40 hours a week with one day off.
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It’s very hard to plan ahead... You never know what you’re going to be doing or where you are going to be from one year to the next. I went from working on a cruise as a dancer travelling the world, to then the next year making my West End debut in Mamma Mia.
Image: Theatres on London’s West End
The most important skill to do this job well is… to just be a nice person. Obviously your talent and hard work and dedication will be a huge factor in getting jobs but if you are a nice, friendly person then that will make you 10x more employable.
My favourite part of my job is… knowing that six-year-old me would have never imagined I’d be doing this as my career and getting to meet so many amazing people.
You meet amazing people at the stage door… who want to meet the cast members and sometimes get a picture or signature after the show. But stage door isn’t compulsory and sometimes you do just want to get home to rest and you can be made to feel guilty if people are unhappy that they didn’t get the chance to see you afterwards.
My mind has gone blank for split seconds… and there have been multiple occasions where in a scene carrying bagpipes the pipes have fallen off or broken on stage. I’ve just had to carry on while holding a snapped pipe in my hand, somehow managing to keep a straight face.
Rejection is a regular thing to deal with… It’s normal to get emotionally attached to opportunities that you have put so much time and effort into, after rounds and rounds of auditions for a job and waiting weeks to hear if you’ve booked the job or not. It is emotionally draining.
For one role I had to fake tan twice a week… and another I had to wear a wetsuit and flippers on stage while dancing.
Dealing with burnout from a very physically and mentally demanding schedule… can make it harder to have other commitments outside of work and seeing friends and family.
Theatre is good value for money when you look at… how much work goes into what the audience members are seeing on the stage. The sheer volume of people that it takes to put on a show, from the production team to the backstage team, cast, creatives, wardrobe, wigs, makeup, sound, theatre front of house staff and many other teams of people that make it possible. I do think that some ticket prices for some shows have become not as easily accessible, but apps like TodayTiks are great for finding affordable tickets for various shows.
A humanoid machine called Apollo has just taken a tentative, slightly jerky, but significant step forward in the robot revolution.
The 5’8″ tall robot performed the first public demonstration in a real-world setting of a real-world task – in this case assembling an engine part – entirely autonomously.
Clicking two parts together with a twist of its servo-controlled wrists, and handing it to a human colleague is a basic task. But it’s also an important moment in the much-hyped world of human-like robot development.
Image: Mercedes-Benz is testing the use of Apollo, a humanoid robot from Apptronik. Pic: Mercedes Benz
“This is a really big day for us,” says Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of Apptronik, the US company behind Apollo.
“We’re excited to show this off, excited for the public to see the robot live and in person.”
Mercedes-Benz has announced a multimillion-pound investment in Apptronik and is trialling a handful of the humanoid robots at its factory in Berlin and another in Hungary.
Investors and industrial firms – particularly car makers with long experience of using robots in manufacturing – have been closely following the development of human-like robots.
The costs of small, lightweight components have fallen as artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and computer vision technology have led to rapid advances in the field of robots that can emulate human movement and tasks.
But despite a rising number of increasingly impressive-looking cyborgs being unveiled by tech companies in the US and Asia, few have taken their first steps out of the lab.
The Apollo robot looks small and underpowered surrounded by the huge robotic arms that weld, bolt and inspect Mercedes’ latest cars at the Berlin-Marienfelde plant.
But hosting a robot with a human “form-factor” is more than just a photo opportunity, according to Mercedes-Benz.
“There’s one big advantage,” says Jorg Burzer, head of production and supply chain management at the German car maker.
“A humanoid robot is flexible, so you can basically introduce it to an assembly line or internal logistics or quality inspection… you can basically move it from one place to another.”
Image: Mercedes-Benz has announced a multimillion-pound investment in humanoid robots. Pic: Mercedes-Benz
Introducing a new assembly line, or upgrading an old one with traditional robotic arms is a major investment.
A robot that can be adapted to a range of tasks and work alongside humans would avoid that investment.
With hands and feet like ours, they can operate tools and work in the same workspaces as people.
Apollo can lift more than 25kg and potentially perform repetitive tasks that are, in the words of humanoid robot developers, too “dull, dirty or dangerous” for humans.
Image: Apollo is 5’8″ tall and can lift 25kg
The purpose of the trial is to establish which tasks humanoid robots can usefully do and help improve the machine learning and dexterity required to do more.
“We want to try to find out what is really possible,” says Mr Burzer.
“It’s also very important to test how a humanoid robot can be integrated in running production together with our colleagues working here every day.”
Texas-based Apptronik is reluctant to make claims as bold as some of their rivals.
“Everyone’s ready for a robot to come into their home and do all of their laundry and all the things that they don’t want to do. But it’s very early on,” says Mr Cardenas.
“Take the analogy of the shift to the personal computer. We’re in the early ’80s so at the very beginning.”
Investors seem to believe in a robot-dominated future. One recent forecast sees the humanoid market growing 20-fold in the next eight years, with predictions of a population of tens of millions of the machines by 2050.
One major hurdle is the AI brains behind them.
Apptronik admits a truly “general purpose” robot capable of functioning outside a predictable and controlled environment like a factory won’t be possible until computer intelligence can understand the real world like we do.
So-called “world models” are very much a work in progress for AI developers.
So the important questions, like when humanoid robots will steal our jobs, or whether they will go rogue and rise up against us can wait… for a little while at least.
One of Tesla’s earliest investors has told Sky News Elon Musk should step aside as its chief executive unless he gives up his new government job.
Ross Gerber said in an interview with Sky’s Business Live that the tycoon and adviser to Donald Trump had lost his focus given his widening interests and was now too “divisive”.
He cited Musk’s post-election role at the helm of the Trump administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
It has attracted public anger, and protests, over planned swingeing cuts to federal government staff.
Mr Gerber said: “I think Tesla needs a new CEO and I decided today I was going to start saying it and so this is the first show that I’m saying it on.
“It’s time for somebody to run Tesla. The business has been neglected for too long. There are too many important things Tesla is doing, so either Elon should come back to Tesla and be the CEO of Tesla and give up his other jobs or he should focus on the government and keep doing what he is doing but find a suitable CEO of Tesla.”
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Mr Gerber told presenter Darren McCaffrey that the business was “absolutely” in crisis and the appointment was among several reasons he had sold off a substantial number of shares in recent months.
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1:26
Climate protesters vandalise Musk’s Tesla robot
A slump began shortly before Mr Trump took office, as the first salvoes of the president’s trade war were being threatened.
Tesla’s market value has plunged by more than $800bn since December and it was a further 4% down in US trading on Tuesday.
The business has been struggling on several fronts.
Electric car demand appears to have peaked across key Western markets despite steep discounting to boost appeal at a time of continued strain on consumer budgets.
Also in the mix is cheap Chinese competition nibbling away at Tesla’s market share.
Add the potential for heightened costs due to Mr Trump’s trade war, it is of little surprise that investors are concerned.
Mr Gerber said that while Tesla’s products were undoubtedly the best around, Mr Musk only had 24 hours in the day and he had split his time too thinly since his purchase of Twitter in 2022.
He added that his social media posts and work with the president since had brought too much negative publicity to Tesla.
“The company’s reputation has just been destroyed by Elon Musk”, he said.
“Sales are plummeting so, yeh, it’s a crisis. You literally can’t sell the best product in the market place because the CEO is so divisive”.
The UK’s biggest water provider has delayed its request for even higher customer bills.
Thames Water has deferred its appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the regulator tasked with deciding if the company can raise bills by even more than initially allowed.
In December, water regulator Ofwat determined that bills could rise 35% to about £588 annually per household by 2030.
This was challenged by the firm serving 16 million people as being insufficient. It wanted a 53% rise.
The deferment comes as Thames Water said it received six offers of new investment and announced it would finalise a bidder by June and close the fundraising process by September.
This postponement will last 18 weeks and has been approved by Ofwat.
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0:53
Thames Water boss can ‘save’ company
Additional investment could result in a “market-led” solution to refinancing the company, Thames Water said.
It means its financial woes could be improved by investors rather than billpayers being charged more.