Issue 1-2, 2007
Prompt Corner 
You know what? I'm tired. Fed up to the back teeth with the whole sorry business. Sometimes the only response is a groan, part exhaustion, part frustration, of "Oh, for God's SAKE!"
A new year, a new cause for what the Internet community signify by the acronym FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. No sooner has the Theatre Museum closed – a day earlier than announced, just in case – than Wandsworth Borough Council announce their intention to withdraw £100,000 annual funding from BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) and charge the organisation a market rent of around £270,000 a year for the Old Town Hall premises. No sooner that bombshell than Northampton Borough Council suggest a reduction in funding of that city's Royal and Demgate theatres of £900,000 over three years. In each case, such a move would lead to closure. You wonder why I'm tired? Time and a-bloody-gain it happens; promises of new dawns for the arts, of making up the shortfall of years of conscious neglect... and then we get shafted.
Muddle-headed
And time and a-bloody-gain the... well, let's be generous and call it the reasoning... behind such decisions is at best muddle-headed, at worst muddle-headed and malicious. We've already marvelled at the argument that the Theatre Museum's assets can be better served in storage, and occasionally in a spare comer of the already overcrowded South Kensington campus, than in dedicated premises in Theatreland. Now Wandsworth come up with the magnificent line that BAC's audiences and activities are on a national scale, therefore it shouldn't get funding from a merely local source. Brian Logan addresses the local benefit in the Quote of the Month extract on the opposite page. But what kind of logic is this, anyway? I'll bet that a significant number – perhaps even the majority – of people who use the roads in the borough aren't local. And what about public health and education services? Why are Wandsworth still paying for these things when, dammit, just anybody might be getting the benefit of them? To call the council's argument parochial would be an insult to the many conscientious and responsible parish councillors across the country; to call it cretinous would likewise be offensive to those of limited IQ. But this is, if anything, eclipsed by Northampton's bright idea to withdraw from the Royal and Derngate exactly the sum they've just spent on refurbishing them! They've only staged two productions since reopening! As joined-up thinking goes, this is fairly definitively un-joined-up.
It would be nice to be able to make this a party political matter. Certainly, Wandsworth has long been a flagship for a certain tendency within Conservative thinking, but Northampton Council has no overall party in control (although Conservatives form the largest single party group). And the Theatre Museum decision was nodded through by a Labour national government. The truth is that every party, when seeking power, utters pious platitudes about the importance of culture and maintaining a soundly funded network of cultural institutions and activities, and when in power either forgets entirely about it, places it at 87th or so on their list of top 50 priorities or considers it a fairly innocuous area in which to swing the axe. I have little doubt that both these borough councils' announcements are tactical: the intention is to lower expectations to zero, and then impose cuts which are merely extremely drastic rather than fatal, so that the patient is left not actually dead, but so pale and bloodless that no long-term holiday plans should be made, and in a grotesque way this is to be greeted with relief. This is typical of the callous disregard of virtually all governmental bodies at any level for the area of culture. There are no votes in culture, you see. In Britain, we even distrust the word itself: when the government Arts ministry was renamed with the C-word, it had to be tempered with '...Media and Sport". And you can bet that those three aren't in descending area of perceived importance.
Coalesce
Except that culture is what we all do, what we all think and feel, all the time. It's not as if culture is something Out There that acts on us with some mysterious force to bind us together: we naturally find common areas of interest, concern and attitude amongst ourselves, we coalesce with one another, and thus we make culture. What we are together is by definition our culture. On some level, possibly not even conscious, any decision to close arts and cultural institutions or to starve them of funding is a "divide and rule" action.
So yes, I get tired. Tired of having to make the arguments time and a-bloody-gain, tired of having to shout these points out time and a-bloody-gain; there comes a point where one can hardly muster more than an exhausted, expletive-laden sigh. And if I feel like this simply as a citizen and a tinpot commentator, what must it be like for those at the sharp end? For Donna Munday and Laurie Sansom at Northampton, for David Jubb at Battersea... and for the foot-soldiers beneath them, often (especially in the case of Battersea) volunteers rather than employees? All these people deserve better. All of us deserve better. I would never advocate violence as a means to any end, of any kind... but wouldn't it be at least interesting and a teeny bit gratifying if for once, instead of petitions or financial plans or whatever being presented to these daft politicos, they were just to be given a brisk smack upside the head?
Nurse, I think it's time for my pills again...
Hyperbolical
Though actually, while I'm on the subject of absurd utterances, have a look at the Daily Mail review of Days Of Significance in this issue. The alert reader will have noticed that Quentin Letts' writings sometimes get up my nose like a little finger (which is somewhat embarrassing, since I rather enjoy his company of an evening). But this one, like those council decisions, is breathtaking. When I read it, I actually rang up the Royal Shakespeare Company and congratulated them on getting the kind of hyperbolical quote that most would give their eye teeth for. Imagine it pasted up in front of the theatre: "Treason - Daily Mail"!
The UK's newspapers, broadly speaking, tend to be of a conservative (with a small "c", to say the least) ideological slant; its theatre reviewers, broadly speaking, tend to be of a more liberal disposition. Quentin is aware of the latter inclination, and enjoys being a gadfly in that respect. The trouble is that, in the context of his paper, he isn't a gadfly at all. In fact, I've never seen an example of arts reviewing in the free world which so consistently prosecutes the overall political agenda of its host outlet. It reduces reviewing to just another tool in the editorial-political box, and in doing so damages it not just within the confines of the title in question but in the wider field.
Let's keep a sense of perspective: to call Roy Williams' play treasonous is clearly absurd, whether or not one has seen or read it. But it's the underlying implications that unsettle me. There's a suggestion there that artistic output has a civic duty to chime with national enterprises, national characteristics... or with matters that are declared to be so. And that's not just wrong, it's chilling.
It savours, in the fullest and most literal sense, of totalitarianism. I'm sure Quentin would be among the first to oppose any political system reliant on the diktats of commissars. Unfortunately, he's expressed his disagreement with (his misinterpretation of) the sentiments of Roy Williams' play in terms which imply precisely that. And frogging and medals wouldn't suit him, honestly.
Top-notch
Just space enough for one 'everybody else is right" remark and a couple of "I can't believe..."s. In the matter of The Seagull, Ian Rickson's production deserves all the praise it has been laden with. (In particular, it's gratifying to see Katherine Parkinson's name being filed for future reference by more reviewers; I know her future career will justify the attention.) This has, in fact, been the first production to make me understand why the play deserves its place among Chekhov's Big Four. It's been a heck of a month for top-notch openings: my Financial Times senior Alastair Macaulay, normally a man as prudent with his reviewer's stars as Gordon Brown with public sector borrowing, gave four five-star ratings during January - to The Seagull, Happy Days (another beautiful production, with Fiona Shaw banishing even the memory of Billie Whitelaw in the role of Winnie), the Sheffield production of The Caretaker (currently on tour; we'll be reprinting Alastair's review when it arrives at the Tricycle in March) and Uncle Vanya.
Which leads me to my first point of dissent: what has been praised as the coolness and disengagement of Rachael Stirling's portrayal of Yelena I just think of as brittle mannerism in her performance style as a whole. My other point is more specific. Normally I would defer entirely to Rhoda Koenig in the matter of American accents: she has the ear of a native, after all. But the praise in the dosing remark of her review of Bash is, I'm afraid, misplaced. Of the four actors, three suffered at some point from the intrusive "R" so common to English actors trying to speak American (Jodie Whittaker's character, apparently, wore a gown of taffeter; still, at least nobody mentioned Chicargo) and the fourth, Juliet Rylance, spoke of being seduced by her teacher amid the fishtanks in something called a Maradigm Center. Where they plan for maradigm shifts, presumably.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@ theatrerecord.comAt the Back
Can You Hear Me in Nottingham?
The countdown is on to the great design jamboree, the Prague Quadriennnale. In June the world's set, costume, lighting and sound designers, not to mention the theatre architects, will be gathering in the Czech capital to swap, develop and steal ideas based on their last four years' work. Britain has always made a good showing in PQ, and the Society of British Theatre Designers' 2007 exhibit can be expected to draw the crowds again. Their prelude to Prague has just finished in Nottingham Trent University, where the lovely Waverley art school building played host to a breathtaking, deeply absorbing exhibit, from which the Prague entry will be whittled down.
The British designers' show is a miracle in itself. deserving to be seen by far more than the lucky few who passed through during its three weeks in Nottingham. A slimmed down version will probably tour after Prague, and may even be seen in (oh, irony!) the Victoria and Albert Museum, as the nearest thing to a theatre display we are likely to get in those echoing, empty halls for some years to come.
All-colour
Meanwhile, you can get the magnificent all-colour catalogue for the show, Collaborators: UK Design For Performance 2003-2007*, which is both more and less than the sum of its parts. In Nottingham, you could also enjoy the designers' presentation skills, with many marvellous set models. slightly fewer finished costumes than usual, but a wealth of storyboards, costume sketches, props, projections and videos to show creativity at work. In the book, the tendency is towards superb production photography, although there are some fine examples of costume sketches in the very individual styles of such masters as Lez Brotherston, Paul Brown, Charles Cusick-Smith and Marie-Jeanne Lecca. (Emma Ryott, now a big costume name, relies on photos). The lighting designers and architects probably come off worst in the book: Rick Fisher's lighting for Billy Elliot, a huge contribution to the show's success, gets a couple of not very representative pictures: there's a whole wall of them in the exhibit. You get a better view of the RSC's new Stratford Courtyard in Tom Piper's photo of his design for Henry VI in use than in Charcoalblue's entry for the site, but best of all is to see their two models in the exhibit, showing the opposite ends of the auditorium.
Nor does the book offer a sight of some of the jokier, user-friendly aspects of the exhibit: Penny Saunders' full-sized marionette horse for Forkbeard Fantasy had young visitors enthralled, while Liz Ascroft's mounting of her set model for Little Voice on an actual Dansette turntable, with headphones to hear excerpts from the show, was another big draw. Ashley Shairp's design for the puppet-based Front Window in Liverpool gets a good photo, but the 3-D model is more, a magical view into another world. The photographs of Richard Downing's settings for The Water Banquet in Aberystwyth are stunning; the cabinet of mysterious jars and containers in his exhibit is even more evocative.
Celebration
Nevertheless, both book and exhibit make a wonderful celebration of British performance design. Our designers work all over the world, many of them in the great opera houses, but at home, too, there are beautiful, functional designs enlivening work in the regions, in tiny Fringe spaces, in outdoor and indoor installations, in touring children's theatre as well in the hothouse of the West End. Often it is the same designer who works in wildly contrasting spaces: Richard Hudson gets four pages in the book for his ENO Ring (which you can compare with the Lazarides/Lecca one for Covent Garden), but equally fascinating are the shots of his low-budget Emperor Jones at the Gate. (The Gate, a house noted for its imaginative design policy; is well represented in the exhibit, rather less in the book.)
It's impossible to name every name in the show, though I'd love to do so. I would, however, like to give an especial salute to some of the designers who work year in year out in the regions, no longer usually as residents but often keeping a solid association. They include Elroy Ashmore, whose work at the Haymarket, Basingstoke was exemplary - his exhibit also includes a clever use of the listed Iford Cloister for Rusalka. Ken Harrison, of Pitlochry and Colchester, offers a fine touring Tempest. Nancy Surman in Salisbury is always sensitive to her space. Martin Bainbridge offers a couple of stunners for Clwyd Theatr Cymru, including an epic Crucible. Francis O'Connor is showing some excellent results of a collaboration with John Clifford at Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum. Keswick is lucky to have both Martin Johns and now Elizabeth Wright, both represented with top-drawer sets. And there's a good example of Neil Murray's work with Northern Stage in his Homage To Catalonia.
Less familiar
Some of the best exhibits are from names that are less familiar to me, though I ought to have registered some of them, like Gary McCann, who has done fine work not only in his native Ireland but also on the mainland. John Riseboro attracted attention for his Closer at the ADC, Cambridge, in the last of these shows. Here he has a stunningly effective illuminated catwalk (which sadly doesn't photograph well) for a Richard Ill in an abandoned church. Phil R Daniels was new to me, but his suitably cheesy sets for Cliff. The Musical immediately marked him out in my book when I saw them, and they are here. In the same vein, Ian Westbrook's thirty set changes for Cromer's annual pier-end Seaside Special deserve proper recognition, while Helen Fownes-Davies shows a similar feel for the lower reaches of showbiz in her designs for Satin 'n' Steel. And I loved George Souglides's quirky costume montages. 2003 Linbury winner Becs Andrews is another striking costume presenter, and her lighting man David Howe gets deserved joint credit for an Orestes 2.0 presented in 2005 at the Guildhall conservatoire. In the area of theatre for children, design has a special importance in that it will form a large part of the impression young, probably first-time spectators will take away. There's a set model from Stewart Nunn that makes full use of the new Unicorn's depth; Phil Newman, something of a children's specialist, has a fine Railway Children in his exhibit, and a Polka show, The Playground, in the book. You can catch some of the intimate enchantment of Laura McEwen's The Crane for Leicester in the photos, but the meticulously built models and the drawings are even more captivating.
Site-specific
Several designers of site-specific performances stand out: Roma Patel's work with Corcadorca in Ireland is exciting indeed, as is that of Fred Meller with Cardboard Citizens. Both get the space they deserve in the exhibit, Roma for a Tempest in the park and a Merchant in the streets of Cork, Fred for her awesome big-space promenade Pericles, a joint production with the RSC. The photographs of Louise-Ann Wilson's Mulgrave make you wish you'd been in the woods near Whitby where it's set; and Simon Banham's description of his work with Quarantine, one of five opening essays in the book, also begs you to know more about the company's work. There are more big names: Pamela Howard draws and notes her directing debut in Greece. Jenny Tiramani shows some of her beautifully finished Jacobean costumes for the Globe. Es Devlin and Bunny Christie have typically striking work, the latter featuring her tremendous kitchen for After Miss Julie at the Donmar. Christopher Oram has his Evita. And the daddy of them all, Ralph Koltai, has his poolside set for Sheffield's Romans In Britain, redolent with symbolism, and a striking maquette for a piece that will hopefully dominate the Prague exhibit, a great metal structure which will stand twenty feet high - if enough sponsorship is forthcoming.
* A4, 228pp: enquires/orders to Kate Burnett, sbtd@ntu.ac.uk
Ian Herbert : ian@herbertknott.com
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
ALEGRIA Return of show by Cirque du Soleil |
Royal Albert Hall |
5 Jan |
8 Feb |
21 |
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) |
Novello |
15 Jan |
17 Feb |
39 |
THE ATHEIST New play by Ronan Noone |
Theatre 503 |
18 Jan |
3Feb |
59 |
BASH Revival of plays by Neil LaBute (Theatre Of Memory) |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
11 Jan |
3 Feb |
24 |
BLASTED Revival of play by Sarah Kane (Graeae) |
Soho |
18 Jan |
3 Feb |
49 |
CHASING THE MOMENT Revival of play by Jack Shepherd |
Arcola |
26 Jan |
24 Feb |
69 |
A CHRISTMAS CAROL Revival of Chris Pickles adaptation from Charles Dickens |
Shaw |
19 Dec |
12 Jan |
96 |
COMFORT ME WITH APPLES Return of new play by Nell Leyshon |
Hampstead |
22 Jan |
27 Jan |
58 |
CYMBELINE New play by Cad Grose based on Shakespeare (Kneehigh) |
Lyric Hammersmith |
18 Jan |
3 Feb |
51 |
THE DEATH OF COOL Revival of play by Alan Pollock |
Tristan Bates |
17 Jan |
3 Feb |
18 |
FAULTLINES New play by James Pearson |
Union SE1 |
19 Jan |
10 Feb |
43 |
GERTRUDE'S SECRET Transfer of monologues by Benediok West |
New End |
2 Jan |
11 Feb |
9 |
GHOSTS Revival of play by Henrik Ibsen in new version by Amelia Bullmare |
Gate |
11 Jan |
17 Feb |
29 |
HAPPY DAYS Revival of play by Samuel Beckett (NT) |
Lyttelton |
24 Jan |
1 Mar |
60 |
THE HISTORY BOYS Transfer of play by Alan Bennett (NT) |
Wyndham's |
3 Jan |
1 Jan |
10 |
THE ICONS IN LONDON New impersonation show by Greg London (p23) |
Venue |
16 Jan |
24 Feb |
23 |
IT STARTED WITH A KISS Revival of play by John Godber |
White Bear |
11 Jan |
28 Jan |
26 |
WITNESS New play by Joshua Sobol |
Finborough |
4Jan |
27 Jan |
15 |
KEN SUE'S KINGDOM New adaptation by Stuart Paterson from book by Michael Morpurgo |
Bloomsbury |
12 Dec |
27 Jan |
5 |
LEONCE AND LENA Revival of play by Georg Büchner (Skinnydipping Prods) |
Tabard |
19 Jan |
11 Feb |
32 |
London International Mime Festival 2007 |
Various |
13 Jan |
28 Jan |
74 |
LOW LIFE New piece by Blind Summit, inspired by the life and works of Charles Bukowski |
BAC |
25 Jan |
4 Feb |
35 |
THE NEW STATESMAN New play by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran |
Trafalgar Studio 1 |
13 Dec |
27 Jan |
6 |
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Revival of adaptation by Buzz Goodbody from story by Dostoevsky |
kcola |
17 Jan |
3Feb |
14 |
POSTCARDS FROM GOD: THE SISTER WENDY MUSICAL New, by Marcus Reeves and Beccy Smith |
Jerrnyn Street |
10 Jan |
3 Feb |
27 |
PRODUCT: WORLD PEW / WHAT WOULD JUDAS DO? Mark Ravenhill revival I new piece by Stewart Lee Bush |
|
11 Jan |
3 Feb |
33 |
THE RECEIPT Return of piece by Will Adamsdale and Chris Branch |
Lyric Studio |
24 Jan |
10 Feb |
9 |
THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW Return of revival of musical by Richard O'Brien |
Comedy |
4 Jan |
27 Jan |
17 |
SAVAGE/LOVE and MOTEL CHRONICLES Revival of plays by Sam Shepard |
Theatre 503 |
3 Jan |
13 Jan |
7 |
SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION Revival of play by Howard Barker (Sweet Pea Prods) |
Hackney Emp, Acorn |
11 Jan |
27 Jan |
39 |
THE SEAGULL Revival of play by Anton Chekhov in new version by Christopher Hampton |
Royal Court |
25 Jan |
17 Mar |
64 |
STING FOR NOLTE New comedy by Tom Lister |
Old Red Lion |
18 Jan |
3 Feb |
22 |
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW / TWELFTH NIGHT Revival of two plays by Shakespeare(Propeller) |
Old Vic |
17 Jan |
17 Feb |
44 |
THERE CAME A GYPSY RIDING New play by Frank McGuinness |
Almeida |
18 Jan |
3 Mar |
53 |
UNCLE VANYA Revival of play by Anton Chekhov in new version by David Mamet |
Wilrons Music Hall |
26 Jan |
10 Feb |
70 |
THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Revival of Kander B Ebb musical revue |
Lander |
16 Jan |
10 Feb |
52 |
Regions |
||||
ALL MY SONS Revival of play by Arthur Miller |
Edinburgh, Royal Lyceum |
13 Jan |
10 Feb |
93 |
DAYS OF SIGNIFICANCE New play by Roy Williams (RSC Complete Works) |
Stratford, Swan |
16 Jan |
20 Jan |
80 |
DICK WHITTINGTON - THE PANTO! Pantomime written by Phil Wilmot |
Oxford Playhouse |
19 Dec |
14 Jan |
97 |
THE GLEE CLUB Revival of play by Richard Cameron |
Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic |
26 Jan |
27 Feb |
93 |
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES New adap'n by Peepolykus B Steven Canny from A Conan Doyle |
Leeds, WYP Courtyard |
24 Jan |
17 Feb |
91 |
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK Pantomime written by Tudor Davies |
Richmond |
8 Dec |
21 Jan |
96 |
MY FAVOURITE SUMMER New play by Nick Lane |
Hull Truck |
25 Jan |
17 Feb |
92 |
RICHARD III Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC Complete Works) |
Stratford, Courtyard |
23 Jan |
17 Feb |
82 |
SAME TIME NEXT YEAR Revival of play by Bernard Slade |
Reading, Mill at Sonning |
10 Jan |
17 Feb |
85 |
SHADOWLANDS Revival of play by William Nicholson |
Salisbury Playhouse |
18 Jan |
10 Feb |
86 |
THERE's NO "V" IN GAELIC New play by Seonag Monk (TAG) |
Glasgow, Citizens |
25 Jan |
27 Jan |
95 |
THE VORTEX Revival of play by Noël Coward |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
22 Jan |
10 Mar |
86 |