Chitty Chitty cheap cheap

Children are to be offered discount tickets for a major London theatre production in a first for the West End.

Producers of the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang have agreed to sell the cheaper tickets from September, when the next booking period comes into force. The move is likely to be welcomed by those campaigning for cheaper seats as West End theatres have never traditionally offered discounts for children or family-style tickets.

Under the new scheme, top ticket prices between Monday and Thursday will be reduced by £10 for children under 12. The current price is £37.50 on Monday and £40 from Tuesday to Thursday.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which has been running for 15 months at the London Palladium, has been widely praised by critics. The production, with a budget of £6.5 million, is the most expensive show staged in Britain. Starring Michael Ball and Anton Rodgers, it features a scene in which the famous car appears to fly across the stage.

In addition, ticket buyers are being offered discounts for some London tourist attractions, restaurants and hotels. However Michael Rose, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's producer, rejected claims the reduced prices were aimed at combating a slump in ticket sales.

He said the scheme set out to offer a broad range of options. It follows a promotion, launched in April in which three of the West End's biggest shows - Les Miserables, My Fair Lady and The Phantom of the Opera - were offering discounted off-peak tickets in a bid to attract more bookings after a fall in the number of tourists visiting the capital.

Last year some West End theatres sold some seats for the price of a West End cinema ticket, around £11, during a trial period. The latest announcement comes on the day the Evening Standard, in conjunction with Totally London Month, teamed up with major theatres to offer a buy one get one free ticket promotion.

Among the theatre productions the offer applies to are My Fair Lady, Our House, Grease, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Fame.

Mayor Ken Livingstone's Totally London promotion aims to encourage more Londoners back to the capital.

Theatre week follows restaurant week and shopping week in the £3.8 million campaign, designed to give key London industries a boost in the wake of the Iraq conflict and an economic downturn. Around 80,000 people took advantage of the Mayor's last cheap tickets scheme.