David Lister: Stardom is waiting in the wings

The most heartwarming arts story of the week was the case of the man who phoned up the Welsh National Opera for a ticket and ended up singing the star role. "You're a tenor aren't you?" said the bloke at the box office, vaguely remembering the name of the ticket buyer, who was a music student in his spare time. "I don't suppose you're free tonight? We've got a bit of a problem..."

This is what usually happens to me when I ring the National Theatre box office. They ask me if I have a moment, that Nicholas Hytner would like a quick word, that Ralph Fiennes isn't feeling too well today, and then I wake up. But in the case of Neath-born Adriano Graziani, it really happened. The tenor was ill; Mr Graziani sang a bit, and it was one short step from the front stalls to the stage. Inevitably, the audience loved him and now there is talk of him leaving the precarious world of banking for a career that suddenly looks a whole lot more stable – opera singing. Mr Graziani has now been booked for the lead role in La Bohème at the Birmingham Hippodrome next year.

It has been quite a week for understudies. At the Wyndham's Theatre in London, at a performance of Ivanov, Andrea Riseborough, who plays Sasha, the girl infatuated with Kenneth Branagh's Ivanov, was taken ill after the first act, and replaced by her understudy Giovanna Falcone. It was all done so hurriedly that Ms Falcone played a whole act before the proverbial man in a dinner jacket came on to explain to a puzzled audience that the female lead had changed. Announcing an understudy when she's been acting for a good half hour could be a theatrical first. Needless to say, Ms Falcone was rewarded with a huge ovation. Understudies always are. Albert Finney recounts how he came on as an understudy for Laurence Olivier in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon in the 1950s. When the announcement was made that Olivier was ill, Finney had to stand in the wings and listen to the loudest communal groan he had ever heard. But once on stage, he proved a hit. "They are impressed that you are in costume and not still wearing flannels," he says, "and then doubly impressed that you actually know the lines and don't have to read them." In other words, understudies can't lose.

The patron saint of understudies is Martine McCutcheon. Her many absences as Eliza Dolittle in the National Theatre's My Fair Lady gave birth to a bevy of future West End stars. But the most remarkable understudy moment I have ever witnessed was at a performance of Rigoletto at the English National Opera. The singer playing the title role had lost his voice by the interval. A frantic ring-round of every singer in London who had played the role found a fine Italian singer. But he knew the role only in Italian. So, in the unforgettable second half, the rest of the cast sang in English and acted their roles, while the understudy, standing at the front of a stage with a music stand, responded to their English dialogue in Italian. It was the audience that deserved a standing ovation.

Understudies will always be loved. Somehow, even the most sophisticated of audiences still see a magical talent in stand-ins knowing the lines, the cues and the costumes. Critical faculties are generally put on hold for last-minute understudies. But our Welsh National Opera banker shouldn't give up the day job just yet. Once his name is in the programme, and he is a fully rehearsed and fully paid-up tenor, audiences and critics can turn nasty.

Pity the poor buskers

The reports of Tom Jones busking this week left me unconvinced. Singing with a bank of cameras and reporters in front of you isn't your routine busk. But I was interested to read how the other celebrity buskers fared in this series of charity busks by BBC2's The Culture Show. While the Charlatans raised a respectable £145 in their 15 minutes, the captivating Róisí*Murphy managed only £65, and fellow international star Moby, pictured, a humiliating £5.42.

Moby and Murphy need to take note. This is the age of the popular vote. And on the streets of London they have been found wanting. Moby's fiver is a particularly nasty blow. Stuck out there on his own, without his famed production techniques, he was unable to get passers-by to part with their loose change. It's enough to send him into therapy. But no one did that well. Even the money in the Charlatans' hat probably would not buy the average lunch for my friends on The Culture Show.

Really useful way to get an extra 10 per cent

And so it goes on... I wrote recently of the annoyance I share with readers about the array of booking fees on theatre and concert tickets. And they keep coming. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group has announced a ticketing deal with Viagogo, one of Europe's leading ticketing companies.

Viagogo will add a 10 per cent, yes 10 per cent, charge to tickets for theatregoers at Lord Lloyd-Webber's theatres. The ticketing company's chief executive, Eric H Baker, told The Stage newspaper somewhat cryptically that the deal "will allow us to grow the footprint of theatre sales considerably". He went on to say that it "will, without question, lower the ultimate cost for tickets for consumers" by providing "a seamless solution to a safe and secure alternative for the industry and fans to distributing tickets directly".

That's an inventive way of justifying a 10 per cent charge. Heaven knows what awful safety risks there might be in West End theatres distributing those tickets to us directly.

But I'm a risk-taker, Mr Baker. Please allow me to have my tickets distributed directly minus the extra 10 per cent fee, and I'll risk the safety and security aspect.

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