Mark Gatiss: 'The West End is pricing itself to death'

Award-winning actor Mark Gatiss has waded into the latest discussion on London theatre ticket prices, claiming the West End is "pricing itself to death".

Talking to WhatsOnStage during an interview about his current project, Three Days in the Country at the National Theatre, Gatiss said: "The West End is pricing itself to death and will inevitably – a bit like London itself – become so increasingly rarefied that you won't be able to take any risks at all."

Gatiss's comments follow recent backlash from actors including Mark Rylance and Juliet Stevenson, the latter claiming that she couldn't afford to see her friend Harriet Walter in the RSC production of Death of a Salesman.

It wasn't all doom and gloom from the Sherlock star though. In response to recent comments made by Mark Rylance in which he blamed the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company for charging "way too much" for tickets, Gatiss praised certain venues for their ticket initiatives.

"It's fantastic to have places like the Donmar and the National which have a dedicated attempt to have a lot of tickets released for £10 or £15 to bring people in," he said.

Gatiss, whose recent stage credits include Coriolanus at the Donmar, for which he won a WhatsOnStage Award, went on to praise the recent regeneration of the South Bank venue for providing "wonderful gateways into getting people into the theatre".

Our full interview with Mark Gatiss will be live on WhatsOnStage later this week.