Cinema is to theatre what bacon is to piglets; an uncomfortable but inevitable lesson in capitalism.

Now before you all storm the IdeasTap battlements wielding razor-sharp playscripts and baying for my blood in a variety of accents, just hear me out.

To deny that film is more commercially successful than theatre is to deny that popcorn is tastier than air. It just is. But, as a wise man once said, you cannot live on bacon popcorn alone. Theatre and film need each other to survive; they inspire, push and challenge each other and, when done well, move each other beyond their own limitations.

Whether it is a stage adaptation of a well-known film, a cinematic release of a popular stage play, or the increasingly common journey from play to film to musical, the worlds of stage and screen have started to mix like warm teenage saliva in a bottle of cheap cider. And I, for one, approve.

Take The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Not, as the name may suggest, a third division French rugby league team, but a 1964 film musical starring Catherine DeNeuve, directed by Jaques Demy. The film follows that age-old story of boy meets girl, girl works in an umbrella shop, boy goes to Algeria on national service, girl gets engaged to 30-something jeweller, boy comes back to Cherbourg and gets married to a prostitute-cum-social worker and girl starts wearing fur coats.

The film has been adapted for stage by Cornwall’s greatest cultural export since Fat Willy’s – Kneehigh – and is currently enjoying a run at London’s Gielgud Theatre. Of course, Kneehigh know a thing or two about staging great films; their production of the British stiff-upper-knickered Brief Encounter has recently transferred to Broadway.

Talking of clipped-accents and smart jackets, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (well, OK, it is also a novel by John Buchan, but no one likes a pedant) has been performed in theatres across the world since opening at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2005. The farcical nature of this off-screen version (with multi-role casting and more nods to Hitchcock than a James Stewart car toy) made it an interesting counterpoint to old Alfred’s cinematic thriller.

Sadly, some stage adaptations have a slightly more troubled inception. Take Spider-Man: the musical. No, seriously, take it; I very much doubt co-creator Julie Taymor wants it anymore. If you thought the sight of Tobey “too many e’s” Maguire and Kirsten “bulldog” Dunst flying through the air muttering and squinting was bad, imagine what it’s like when the ropes don’t hold.

Of course, the traffic between stage and screen is far from one way. Cameron Mackintosh’s latest West End musical, Betty Blue Eyes, may sound like your granddad’s nickname for the girl who changes his bedpan, but it is actually a new stage musical based on the film A Private Function. That film, however, is itself an adaptation of the original stage play by Alan Bennett about a royal wedding and runaway piglet.

A big budget musical, based on a film that is itself based on a play? A runaway West End pig that is bringing home the bacon? My friends, I rest my case.

Image by narcvsille.

Do films make good plays? Or should be stop bending our genres? Leave your comments below.