A good theatre programme – perhaps one produced by the National Theatre, the Globe or the RSC – can be richly informative and enhance the audience’s experience of a production. On rare occasions a programme can be a beautiful thing too: an artefact that jogs the memory and vividly conjures up an ephemeral experience when you accidentally stumble across it weeks or months or years later. At its worst – often, but not always in the West End – it’s a rip-off, increasing the cost of an already pricey night out.

Has the traditional programme had its day? Maybe not quite yet, but increasingly, companies and theatres are realising that they can generate content on their websites that’s of interest not only to potential theatregoers but also to those who have already seen the show. Some venues and companies are already getting the hang of this and realising that their website can be about much more than just selling tickets. I reckon that with very little work, most theatres could extend this easily, perhaps to further reading around a piece of work, the playlist (if there is one) and more insight into the creative process. The audience member who returns to a company or theatre website to find out more about what they’ve just seen is as valuable as one looking to buy a ticket.

The internet has made flyering on the Edinburgh fringe far less widespread (and saved a great many trees in the process), and might have the same effect on the programme, which at its worst is outrageously expensive, badly produced, uninformative and simply a vehicle for advertising. You are paying well over the odds for something that is merely designed to generate income for the theatre and sell you something else that you didn’t know you needed. This is why the rise of the play-text programme, which often comes at a very reasonable price, is a welcome development, provided that a free cast sheet is also available for those who don’t want to purchase the script. The free cast sheet could be used to provide links to further online material.

It is far too soon to sound the death knell, and I for one would miss the very best that are produced. But if the traditional theatre programme looks as if it might be heading slowly into obsolescence, there may be other ways that it can be used, such as by placing it actually within the performance or making it an integral part. At In Between Time in Bristol I saw two productions – Jo Bannon’s Alba and Action Hero’s Extraordinary Rendition – in which the free programme handed out at the end of the performance went way beyond the traditional programme, feeling instead as if it was completely crucial to the performance. The written word and the performance bounced off each other. In such instances, the programme is used as another low-tech platform for distribution and a way of extending the show after it’s over.