Parking Protest - Musicians and actors held a protest in London's West End against Westminster City Council's plans to extend parking charges in the borough. The new parking charges will target the area south of Oxford Street, including Theatreland, and will see a rate of £4.40 an hour charged all day on Fridays and Saturdays until midnight, and between 1pm and 6pm on Sundays. It will be the first time the council has charged for parking after 6.30pm or on Sundays, with London theatres claiming it could put audiences off coming to the theatre and cost them as much as £70min ticket sales annually. Concerns have also been raised about the welfare of performers, musicians and backstage staff who are forced to use public transport late at night following a show.
The Musicians' Union claims that the extra charges could cost musicians and other performers working in the area an extra £100 or more per week. Dave Webster, MU senior organiser for London, said: "Musicians are often required to work unsociable hours and carry heavy and valuable instruments and equipment that makes it difficult and risky to use public transport. Many of our members are self-employed and are not sufficiently well-paid to be able to afford the proposed extended parking charges."
American Idiot - Green Day's musical American Idiot is to hold its British premiere in autumn 2012. The Tony Award-winning musical will tour the UK next year, beginning at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton on 9 October and including the Millennium Centre in Cardiff and Manchester's Palace Theatre. The tour will end with a run at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo in London in December 2012.
Farewell - Ukulele player Bill Tapia, who performed with the likes of Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley, has died aged 103. A statement posted on his website said he was "widely believed to be the oldest performing musician ever to take to the stage". The musician, who received his first ukulele aged 7, died at his home in California. He began his career entertaining World War I troops in 1918. The obituary on his website said he was the "last living link to the earliest days of both jazz and the ukulele as a popular instrument".
(Jim Evans)
