My life of grime in a Lloyd Webber theatre

The theatrical peer is the West End's biggest playhouse-owner. But for the actress Nichola McAuliffe, working in his theatres is an experience she would rather forget

Andrew Lloyd Webber is, undoubtedly, a great man. Margaret Thatcher once pointed him out to Sir Peter Hall with the words: "Why can't you be more like him, Peter?" Lloyd Webber didn't ask the Government for handouts; he and his company bought up theatres in the West End, and an empire was created. They were a commercial success.

Last week, Lloyd Webber called for "the demolition and replacement of certain playhouses". Well, he may not have to go to the expense of demolition, if the buildings owned by him and his company, The Really Useful Group - known affectionately as Oxymoron plc - collapse of their own volition. I have played in more than one of them, and remember vividly the dirt and disrepair all around.

Of the Lloyd Webber theatres, two seem to be the milch cows that keep the others afloat. One, the Palladium, pays rent of between £40,000 and £55,000 a week. In a good week, when the schools are on holiday, more than £500,000 goes into the coffers. When a Sunday-night charity concert was held there, the rent for staging it was about £9,000 plus a percentage of the takings on programmes.

Now, I know I'm only an actress and so on an intellectual par with a cactus, but it strikes even me as odd that there is so little money available to maintain the fabric of the finest Frank Matcham theatre in England. It's all very well for Lloyd Webber to say: "Would it not be better if we didn't stay on the heritage side here and said, for once, we will actually allow a new development?" But my question is: Andrew, is it really acceptable for lumps of plaster to fall from theatre ceilings into the stalls? I wish I could report that that particular incident happened while the theatre was closed, but no, the head of an audience member was involved. Sadly, no details can be given, as legal debates are going on. Is it really acceptable for the window sills in one theatre to be so rotten that they gave up the ghost during a performance and showered the, again populated, stage with glass?

The backstage conditions in Oxymoron theatres I've worked in would almost have the RSPCA stampeding for the High Court. In one of them recently, complaints about the unspeakable dirt in and around the dressing-rooms resulted in the lavatory being painted. You still needed a tetanus jab if you tripped on the stairs. Holes in walls were patched with cardboard. Carpets were worn and encrusted with the chocolate and ice-cream of generations; replacement had been promised for a year but was still unforthcoming. Carpet is cosmetic, you say? When you take your children to the theatre and they crawl on the floor, or you casually put your coat under your seat, think about what it is you'll be taking home.

Backstage, in the summer, the crew in the flies, high above the stage, were working in 40-degree heat, and the dressing-rooms were worse than the top deck of a London bus on the hottest day of the year. The management provided fans, but the landlords did nothing to alleviate the extraordinary extremes of temperature we endured. In one theatre, the hot water functioned only if the heating was on and, as the landlord had apparently decreed that British summer time began on 19 March, there were only cold showers for several days, which discouraged the 40-odd members of the company from even the most cursory rub-down with a damp flannel. They compensated with enough Czech & Speake No 88 to stun a bullock.

On the other hand, we should have been grateful for the dry period, as the drains were blocked at the time - as they were, on and off, for months. The lack of water backstage was compensated for on stage, where the holes in the roof offered no resistance to the heavy downpours common in Britain. There was no immediate response from the landlords, beyond promising that "something" would be done. The crew bought buckets and placed them under the holes. More holes appeared. The stage was often dotted with puddles, which the stage management attacked with mops between scenes.

It would all have been hilarious if it hadn't meant that people were trying to dance on a stage that could be downright dangerous. Dancers have a short professional life and little to fall back on; the conditions we were enduring were not what you might expect from one of the foremost figures in 20th-century musical theatre.

I'm not saying those problems amounted to breaches of the letter of health-and-safety law, and many of them were eventually fixed. But the full-scale investment needed to renovate this particular theatre as it deserves has not been made.

That other giant of musical theatre, Cameron Mackintosh, has put his own money where his mouth is: he is in the process of refurbishing and improving - or has refurbished - the Prince of Wales, the Prince Edward and the Queen's. He will put a levy on the tickets, but at least the public will see, and feel, what they're paying for. The idea being bandied around, of putting a levy on seats already costing £40 before any work is done, is ludicrous. In my experience, audiences happily pay if they can see and feel what they've forked out for. More comfort, better sightlines, modern facilities - without demolition. Mackintosh realises the importance of our heritage and has made the imaginative and financial leap to marry it with modernisation.

Demolition and rebuilding is not the answer. Most modern theatres I have played in have inadequate acoustics and generally bad design backstage and front of house. Indeed, in Woking, if you turn left instead of right out of your dressing-room, you land up in a Marks & Spencer's food hall.

The figure of £250m over the next 15 years to keep the West End's 40 theatres usable has been given. That sounds daunting, but, in fact, it is £6.25m per theatre and £16.7m per year. Still frightening numbers? Well, I put it to the Treasury, based on research I did a couple of years ago, that West End theatres attract more paying punters than Premiership football matches.

That's right: the people's sport is less popular than all that elitist shouting loud at night in darkened rooms. Theatre brings in more VAT revenue than Premiership football and attracts more tourists to London than almost anything else. And I'm not talking about the easily spooked Americans but the British tourists, who outnumber international visitors quite impressively.

Lord Lloyd-Webber should be calling on the Government for support. He should be pointing out that the triumphs since 1997 have been Tate Modern and rugby, not the Dome and football. The public-private partnership so reviled in transport terms might well work if applied to renewing London's theatres. And this isn't a faded luvvie talking. I barely turned a hair when one of the cast reported seeing a cockroach the size of Cumbria sharing his interval biscuits. And you can't be too sensitive if you have to share your dressing-room with a plague of rodents. Paul O'Grady once said: "I looked the word 'Palladium' up in the dictionary. It said: 'rat-infested pit'."

Paul was, of course, being ridiculous. They were mice, and even the National Theatre had them. Sweet, cuddly little house mice. Armies of them making their incontinent way into our food, make-up, towels and bedding. Yes, we are, if we're very senior and there's space, allowed a truckle in the dressing-room, for the long hours of exhaustion between shows. Most actors would not be up to the hurly-burly of the chaise longue, despite what you may have heard about our morals. But getting under the covers is rare when you find the bottom sheet covered in faeces. I asked if it would be possible, as in the Comedy Theatre (not an Oxymoron-owned house), to have a theatre cat. I was told that the landlord's reply was: no - it wouldn't be hygienic.

Could it be that the man who invested so much in Cats would rather abandon the actual animals in favour of something more modern? Well, believe me - the mice love the blue pellets and, like us, roared with laughter at the idea of installing an owl in the auditorium. You think cats are unhygienic? Try getting guano off the red plush upholstery. Just trust what is proven and cherish it, lest your obituary features baby and bathwater.