London theatre tickets among the world's most expensive as shows increasingly charge £100 a seat

Survey finds that 80% of theatre-goers are put off attending productions more often over costly tickets

As an example of ticket prices, the cheapest seats remaining for 'Farinelli and the King' at the Duke of York will still set you back £25 or £30, and those are in the upper gallery with restricted views (Rex)

London theatre tickets are now among the most expensive in the world, with an ever-increasing number of shows charging £100 a seat.

A survey of more than 3,000 Whatsonstage.com readers last month revealed that more than 80 per cent of people said costly tickets prevented them from attending the theatre more often. It was easily the biggest factor in potential theatre-goers making the decision to stay at home.

Whether for blockbuster shows such as Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which sold out in hours a year before it opened, or revivals and West End debuts with big names attached, prices continue to rocket. A programme alone for Hamlet at the Barbican costs £8.

The National Theatre, which receives a public subsidy from Arts Council England, is one of the few exceptions that allows people to purchase cheap tickets online and choose where they want to sit. Its Travelex 2015 season offered 100,000 seats at £15 with a choice of four plays – one of which, Our Country’s Good, is still running.

The Donmar Warehouse has a similar scheme providing a limited number of cheap tickets in the best seats but few others are able or willing to do the same.

Wolf Hall star Mark Rylance’s hotly anticipated return to the stage in Farinelli and the King, a new play by Claire van Kampen at the Duke of York, is typical of an increasingly common price structure. The only tickets still available, scattered among the £25 or £30 upper gallery seats with restricted views, are for odd seats in the stalls or royal circle for £95 each. If you fancy queuing from early in the morning, which many do not or cannot, £10 day seats are available. Sherlock and League of Gentleman star Mark Gatiss recently said theatre in London was “pricing itself to death”. The award winning actor told Whatsonstage: “The West End will inevitably – a bit like London itself – become so increasingly rarefied that you won’t be able to take any risks at all.”

Rylance himself has complained about the cost of theatre tickets, as has Juliet Stevenson, who said that she could not afford to see her friend Harriet Walter in the recent RSC production of Death of a Salesman.