Cameron Mackintosh is spending £30 million to clean up some of his West End Theatres. But the West End itself is a dismal disgrace. “The West End is absolutely sordid. No Londoner goes there. It only exists for junkies, itinerants and tourists. It’s not London, it is something else. Having better, more attractive streets makes people behave better. Why don’t they wash the streets, as they do in Paris? I don’t know what the Mayor of London is doing but addressing the West End would be a start. Ten years ago, in Barcelona, the mayor spirited the city into something else, stopped it from being a sleazy tip. I don’t know anybody who goes to West End theatres – if you were to ask them, it would be as if you had passed them a dead rat.”