For Americans tired of Broadway’s seemingly endless appetite for commercialism and tired revivals of decades-old shows, London’s theatre scene has always seemed like a mystical promised land. But a closer look shows that London’s West End is suffering from many of the same problems that plague Broadway: notably, the lack of almost anything new on the stage. “The fragile health of the drama became a subject of national publicity in Britain recently with a televised competition, vaguely in the spirit of ‘American Idol,’ among untried playwrights.”