Silver screen to wooden boards: West End bitten by Hollywood bug

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Glengarry Glenross, Henry V, Amadeus, 12 Angry Men, The Crucible – transporting plays from stage to screen has long been a guaranteed formula for box office success. Now Britain's beleaguered theatres are reversing the process – turning to adaptations of well-known films to bring audiences into the theatre.

The latest production is Girl with a Pearl Earring, which garnered critical acclaim as a book inspired by a Vermeer painting before being transformed into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Now the curtain has risen on a new West End stage version starring Adrian Dunbar.

While the trend is applauded by audiences, it is being viewed with suspicion by leading playwrights. Many of the current West End hits – including the musicals Hairspray, The Lion King and Billy Elliott – are film-based, and Hollywood has grown to dominate the serious West End theatre.

In 2000 Kathleen Turner wowed audiences in The Graduate at the Gielgud Theatre. Since then, the cross-over from the screen to treading the London boards has become virtually mandatory for Hollywood A-list stars. Josh Hartnett, who plays the lead in Rain Man at the Apollo, another film adaptation, joins fellow film stars Kevin Spacey, who is in charge at the Old Vic, and Alan Rickman, who is directing My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Tricycle Theatre and Strindberg's Creditors at the Donmar Warehouse.

Not everyone welcomes the development, however, with some leading playwrights, such as Michael Frayn, arguing that the film-to-stage adaptations have prospered at the expense of new writing. "It seems a pity that producers feel they can't find an audience for new work and have to rely on a story for which an audience has already been found," he said.

Alan Ayckbourn, the Scarborough-based playwright who once banned London's West End from producing any of his plays, arguing that it had become "pretty unsympathetic to the new play", said this weekend: "I told you so."

However, Nica Burns, the producer of Rain Man, who also heads the Society of London Theatres, argued that as long as the story was strong, it didn't matter where it came from. "What they are bringing to the table is that they are really original stories," she said. "You can't do a play adaptation without having a good writer. You don't just take the film and put it on the stage. More writers are cutting their teeth in television and films. A lot of people today are growing up with films."

The founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Peter Hall, agreed. "I think new play writing is coming through," he said. "There are vast numbers of films that are part of our cultural heritage. They go back 50 years and if they are part of our heritage it's perfectly right they should be examined. I think we have to be more open to influence."

But Garry McQuinn, the producer of the new musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, based on the cult 1994 movie, added that many producers were turning to well-known brands because of the costs and risks of putting on new shows.

"We rely on some branding," he said. "If an audience is going to spend £50 on a ticket – and then more on travel and dinner – they want to know they are going to have a good night. The problem we have is that it is so risky to put these big shows on that we all want to cling on to something that's known."

Movie remakes

Rain Man

Film: 1988

Stars: Dustin Hoffman

Critical reaction: Four Oscars

Play: 2008

Stars: Josh Hartnett

Where: Apollo Theatre, London

Critics: You'd get a poor idea of the theatre as an art form (The Independent)

The 39 Steps

Film: 1935

Stars: Robert Donat

Critics: Arguably the greatest of Hitchcock's British films

Play: 1995, above

Stars: Nigel Betts

Where: Criterion Theatre

Critics: Won 2007 Olivier Award for Best New Play

Brief Encounter

Film: 1945

Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard

Critics: David Lean nominated for Best Director Oscar

Play: 2008, above

Stars: Naomi Frederick, Ian

Ross

Where: Haymarket

Critics: A delight: moving, funny, gripping ('The Times')

On the Waterfront

Film: 1954

Stars: Marlon Brando

Critics: Won eight Oscars

Play: 2008, above

Stars: Simon Merrells

Where: Nottingham Playhouse

Critics: A terrific production ('Telegraph')