Issue 25/26, 2007
Prompt Corner 
At this point I would normally be racking my brains trying to remember the various Christmas shows I'd seen and to crystallise some opinions about them. But this isn't a usual situation.
Cut
It started, for me, at a Christmas show. Whilst waiting to go into the matinee performance of Cinderella at the Old Vic, I picked up a voicemail from Holly Kendrick, director of the National Student Drama Festival. NSDF had just heard that Arts Council England had provisionally decided to cut the £52,000 funding it receives annually, effective immediately. That left the Festival with almost exactly three months to either find alternative funding or in some other way cope with the loss of 20% of its budget, before the 2008 Festival began in Scarborough in mid-March. But actually, they couldn't devote all that time to it, because ACE was expediting its appeals procedure, and NSDF had until January 15 to file any such appeal. That's today, for domestic UK subscribers to Theatre Record. Four and a half weeks to put a full appeal together. Four and a half weeks induding the usually extended British Christmas/New Year holiday period. Taking the holidays into account, it worked out at 18 working days. (Remember that figure; it crops up again later.)
Over the next day or two it became apparent that ACE, having been given its own allocation of funding late from government, had decided there was nothing to be gained by dragging its feet and had formulated its entire funding proposals for 2008-2011 within a couple of months. The result was that, less than a fortnight before Christmas, some 190 theatre companies, venues, festivals, musical groups etc heard that they would almost certainly be losing some or all of their funding at three months' notice, and had as many weeks to appeal against the decision.
Unhelpful
Now, we don't actually know who many – even most – of these 190-odd are, because ACE haven't released names. Nor have they released the names of the 75% of bodies on their funding books which they say will have their funding levels maintained or increased. And damned few of the latter have piped up, because it's been made clear that these more favourable arrangements are contingent upon funds being available and not stymied by things like successful appeals by the losers-out; as a result, most other venues have decided it's better not to rock the boat. It's understandable, but unhelpful in terms of getting an overall grasp of this sudden, radically redrawn picture. And ACE certainly aren't contributing anything towards openness; quite the reverse. ("Confidentiality", they say.) At a packed, stormy meeting organised by Equity last week, its chief executive Peter Hewitt asserted that these decisions are taken in consultation with arts practitioners and not simply by managers or policy wonks, then responded with anger to the request that he name any such practitioners working with ACE.
But I can tell you who some of the losers are. NSDF, I've mentioned. The Drill Hall. London Bubble. Pop-Up Theatre. Station House Opera. Watermans in Brentford. The People Show. Derby Playhouse. The Northcott in Exeter. Eastern Angles. The queerupnorth festival in Manchester. The Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford. The Bush Theatre. London Mozart Players. The City of London Sinfonia. London Disability Arts Forum. And that's without pausing for breath. That's a lot of people, a lot of organisations. A lot, especially, catering to particular sectors, such as LDAF and the Drill Hall/queerupnorth. So much for increasing access and diversity.
At the Equity meeting, Peter Hewitt gave the impression that he was not there to listen. Certainly, on a number of occasions, he didn't listen. He frequently constructed straw men by claiming that those who had questioned or objected to particular instances were opposed to the whole shebang, opposed to the notion that anything should ever have to change. He passionately defended the idea that ACE should make choices and take decisions, but he was defending it against non-existent attacks. No-one questioned the principle.
Decisions
But one might question particular choices and decisions. Such as the decision whereby NSDF's funding was devolved from national ACE to Arts Council Yorkshire on the grounds that, although a national event, it is actually staged in Yorkshire each year... then that funding was removed by the Yorkshire arm on the grounds that it was not specifically a Yorkshire event, but a national one. Or the decision whereby queerupnorth was encouraged (i.e required, in order for continued funding) to cast its net wider than its principal festival period in Manchester alone, and to bring productions to the region as a whole... then funding was removed on the grounds that gay work was reasonably available in many parts of the region, even though that work was only there because queerupnorth had brought it there. Or the decision whereby the renovations of the Northcott were generously funded by ACE... then almost immediately upon the theatre's reopening, the intended withdrawal of revenue funding was announced... with the Council trying to portray it as an act of grace that the theatre would receive a whole year's money and only have to dose in 2009 rather than immediately. Or the decision whereby ACE has announced a 9% increase over these three years in funding for new writing, and then exemplified its attitude towards that sector by cutting £180,000 from its funding to the Bush Theatre, the single most consistently successful new writing venue on the entirety of the fringe and a beacon far beyond.
In the days before the Equity/Hewitt meeting, a number of people had tried to moderate matters by saying that it was principally a matter not of the decisions themselves, but of the suddenness and secrecy with which they were delivered. But examples such as those I've just quoted –and again, those are simply the ones I've come across, I haven't gone in search of enormities – are not mere infelicities of presentation. If that had been the conduct of a private individual, he would probably have been sectioned by now, confined under the Mental Health Act as a disturbance and a danger to themselves and the community around them. All right, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it certainly raises the question of whether ACE's left and right hands choose and decide to ignore each other's actions, or whether they simply don't have a bleeding clue. I asked this question; answer came there none.
Horrific
Most horrific of all was the testimony of Josie Rourke, artistic director of the Bush. She and her colleagues had, amid the shock and the holiday freeze, made a number of requests of ACE under the Freedom of Information Act. They were lucky; they got the requested documents in time. The FOIA permits organisations 20 working days in which to respond to requests. The number of working days available for assembling an appeal, you may remember, was 18. And what the Bush found was horrifying: the audience numbers on which ACE had based their assessment were on the low side by two-thirds. That's a pretty hefty disparity, and would certainly seem to fit the only criterion ACE are permitting for appeal, that of "flawed procedure". In fact, Josie argued that, given this indication, ACE ought at least to suspend the process and audit their figures fully. It's not compelling proof that every instance is just as off-balance, but surely it's prima fade evidence that fairly wide errors have passed unnoticed. Hewitt was having none of it; one case is one case, he said, and doesn't reflect on any of the other sets of figures... sets which the bodies in question may not see in time, or may never see if they haven't aimed the Fol requests precisely enough.
And there is evidence that the process as a whole was flawed from the beginning. It seems that in order to respond as quickly as they thought best, ACE did not follow their own guidelines on disinvestment. In fact, Dedalus Publishers plans to sue the Arts Council on these grounds. A number of voices at the meeting asked Hewitt bluntly whether or not ACE was in breach of its own procedure; his avoidance of the question was excruciating. ACE's web site asserts baldly that it followed the procedure, but has removed the disinvestment policy itself so that no-one can judge. Following the 18-day period for lodging appeals, ACE has declared that it will deal with appeals within two weeks of that deadline. One contributor pointed out that, if all 194 funding losers appealed (as most surely will), that made for a mere 25 minutes to consider each case. The maths was explained step by simple step; Hewitt failed to grasp it and contemptuously waved the point away. One wonders whether part of this hurry is to try and get the whole business tied up by the time his term of office expires in a few weeks.
Commissarism
Towards the end of the Equity meeting the venerable actress Miriam Karlin proposed a vote of no confidence in the Arts Council as it is today. The motion was passed unanimously by the 500 or so present. In some ways, that's a very risky proposition, because the final qualifier "as it is today" is likely to be lost. Again, no-one has issue with the principle of an Arts Council as an arm's-length public funding agency distinct from and largely independent of government; the problem is with the culture of commissarism, secrecy and it sometimes seems downright hostility of ACE under Hewitt. As for him, his response was: ""Important as those opinions are, we do not feel they are representative of the theatre community as a whole and most certainly not the wider arts community." In other words, once again not listening to what was actually said –either hearing something else entirely or ignoring it altogether. Now, I would have thought that an ability to take on board the reality of a situation, a position or an argument was fairly basic to the requirements of holding a post like chief executive of Arts Council England. One can only hope that his successor has better basic medical care – blood pressure treatment, regular ear syringes and the like. But God alone knows how long this unholy, shameful mess will take to sort out, or to what extent it is even possible. This one will run and run.
Theatre Record, on the other hand, doesn't so much run at this time of year as skip. Our next issue will also be a double number, covering the first four weeks of January 2008. Consequently, it will be a little while before it emerges. In the meantime, say a prayer for some of the poor souls mentioned above. Even for Peter Hewitt, if your devoutness and charity are that phenomenally saintly.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
No "At the Back" this issue
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR Revival of play by Alan Ayckboum |
Garrick |
11 Dec |
1 Jan |
1482 |
ANANSI TRADES PLACES New play by Trish Cooke, with music by Delray Murray (Talawa) |
Shaw |
13 Dec |
5 Jan |
1520 |
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST New adaptation by Paul Hunter and Carl Grose (Told By An Idiot) |
Lyric Hammersmith |
7 Dec |
5 Jan |
1517 |
BITCH SLAPPED BY GOD New piece by Everett Quinton |
Drill Hall |
7 Dec |
6 Jan |
1468 |
THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT Revival of play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
Southwark Playhouse |
10 Dec |
5 Jan |
1479 |
A CHRISTMAS CAROL—IKRISMAS KHEROL New adaptation by Mark Domford May from story by Dickens |
Young Vic |
20 Nov |
19 Jan |
1508 |
CINDERELLA New adaptation by Trish Cooke and Robert Hyman |
T R Stratford E15 |
11 Dec |
19 Jan |
1528 |
CINDERELLA New adaptation by Stephen Fry |
Old Vic |
9 Dec |
20 Jan |
1521 |
DEALER'S CHOICE Transfer of revival of Patrick Marber play |
Trafalgar Studio 1 |
11 Dec |
1 Jan |
1486 |
DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT New panto adaptation by Susie McKenna |
Hackney Empire |
5 Dec |
12 Jan |
1512 |
DUCK! New adaptation by Philip Osment from story by Hans Christian Andersen |
Unicorn (Weston) |
11 Dec |
27 Jan |
1529 |
THE FAERIE QUEEN New adaptation from poem by Edmund Spenser (Cilgwyn TC) |
Lilian Baylis |
13 Dec |
29 Dec |
1493 |
THE FAMILY PLAYS New plays by Joakim Pirinen / Natalia Vorozhbit |
Royal Court Upstairs |
5 Dec |
21 Dec |
1467 |
FUNGUS THE BOGEYMAN New adaptation by Marcus Romer from book by Raymond Briggs (Pilot Th) |
artsdepot |
28 Nov |
6 Jan |
1507 |
GOD IN RUINS New play by Anthony Neilson (RSC) |
Soho |
5 Dec |
5 Jan |
1469 |
HERGE'S ADVENTURES OF TINTIN Return of adaptation by Rufus Norris and David Greig, from Hergé |
Playhouse |
12 Dec |
23 Feb |
1489 |
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK New pantomime by Jonathan Harvey |
Barbican |
6 Dec |
12 Jan |
1514 |
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY Revival of David Edgar adaptation from Dickens Gielgud |
8 Dec |
27 Jan |
1473 |
|
LITTLE WOLF'S BOOK OF BADNESS New adaptation by Anthony Clark from book by Ian Whybrow |
Hampstead |
6 Dec |
5 Jan |
1516 |
LOFT New circus show by The 7 Fingers |
Roundhouse |
11 Dec |
30 Dec |
1488 |
THE MAGIC FLUTE—IMPEMPE YOMLINGO New adaptation by Mark Domford May from opera by Mozart |
Young Vic |
20 Nov |
19 Jan |
1507 |
MARIANNE DREAMS New adaptation by Moira Buffini, from book by Catherine Storr |
Almeida |
19 Dec |
19 Jan |
1501 |
MEN OF STEEL New children's show |
Soho |
7 Dec |
6 Jan |
1529 |
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Revival of play by Shakespeare (NT) |
Olivier |
18 Dec |
1 Jan |
1497 |
MY REAL WAR New adaptation by Tricia Thorns from the letters of Havilland Le Mesurier |
Tristan Bates |
3 Dec |
8 Dec |
1481 |
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD Revival of musical by Rupert Holmes, from Charles Dickens |
Warehouse Croydon |
14 Dec |
24 Feb |
1494 |
OFFICE PARTY XMAS 2007 New piece by Ursula Martinez and Christopher Green |
Pit |
14 Dec |
29 Dec |
1530 |
OTHELLO Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Donmar |
4 Dec |
23 Feb |
1461 |
POTTED POTTER: THE UNAUTHORISED HARRY EXPERIENCE New piece by Dan & Jeff |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
17 Dec |
5 Jan |
1532 |
RAPUNZEL Revival of play by Annie Siddons (Kneehigh) |
Queen Elizabeth Hall |
19 Dec |
5 Jan |
1534 |
ROUGH MUSIC New play by Sylvia Freedman |
King's Head |
7 Dec |
13 Jan |
1472 |
SHADOWLANDS Revival of play by William Nicholson |
Novello |
19 Dec |
16 Feb |
1228 |
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS Pantomime by Eric Potts and Peter Denyer |
New Wimbledon |
7 Dec |
20 Jan |
1519 |
THE WINTER'S TALE Revival of play by Shakespeare (Steam Industry) |
Courtyard |
20 Dec |
27 Jan |
1487 |
THE WOMAN HATER Premiere of 1802 play by Fanny Bumey |
Orange Tree |
21 Dec |
2 Feb |
1504 |
THE YOUNG ONES New adaptation from screenplay by Ronald Cass & Peter Myers |
Upstairs at the Gatehouse |
18 Dec |
27 Jan |
1476 |
Regions |
||||
NOUGHTS AND CROSSES New adaptation by Dominic Cooke from novel by Malone Blackman (RSC) |
Stratford upon Avon, Civic Hall |
6 Dec |
19 Jan |
1535 |
FANTASTIC MR FOX Revival of adaptation by Sarah Woods from story by Roald Dahl (Little Angel/RSC) |
Stratford upon Avon, Civic Hall |
20 Dec |
4 Jan |
1537 |
HONK! Revival of musical by George Stiles & Anthony Drewe, adapted from Hans Christian Andersen |
Newbury, Watermill |
1 Dec |
5 Jan |
1537 |
TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN Revival of adaptation by David Wood from novel by Philippa Pearce |
Manchester, Library |
3 Dec |
12 Jan |
1538 |
I AM A MISTAKE New dance/performance/film/music piece by Wolfgang Rhim and Jan Fabre |
Birmingham Symphony Hall |
6 Dec |
6 Dec |
1538 |
A TRIP TO SCARBOROUGH Revival of variations by Alan Ayckboum on play by R B Sheridan |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
11 Dec |
5 Jan |
1539 |
BLUE CROSS XMAS New play by Nick Lane |
Hull Truck |
6 Dec |
19 Jan |
1540 |
AN IDEAL HUSBAND Revival of play by Oscar Wilde |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
17 Dec |
26 Jan |
1540 |
TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM New adaptation by Gan Jones (Creation TC) |
Oxford, BMW Group Plant |
27 Nov |
12 Jan |
1541 |
TREASURE ISLAND New adaptation by Karen Louise Hebden from book by Robert Louis Stevenson |
Derby Playhouse |
29 Nov |
26 Jan |
1542 |
PETER PAN Adaptation by Eric Potts and Peter Denyer from play by J M Barrie |
Bromley, Churchill |
30 Nov |
13 Jan |
1545 |
PETER PAN Adaptation by Eric Potts and Peter Denyer from play by J M Barrie |
Woking, New Victoria |
7 Dec |
13 Jan |
1545 |
PETER PAN Revival of adaptation by Willis Hall with songs by Stiles & Drewe, from play by J M Barrie |
Birmingham Rep |
28 Nov |
19 Jan |
1545 |
CINDERELLA Pantomime, full details unknown |
Sunderland, Empire |
8 Dec |
6 Jan |
1546 |
CINDERELLA Pantomime by Ben Crocker |
Exeter, Northcott |
12 Dec |
19 Jan |
1547 |
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST New adaptation by Mike Kenny |
Leeds, WYP Courtyard |
6 Dec |
12 Jan |
1547 |
ALADDIN Pantomime by Paul Elliott |
Birrnginham Hippodrome |
19 Dec |
27 Jan |
1548 |
MOTHER GOOSE Pantomime by Nicholas Pegg, songs by Carol Sloman |
Hornchurch, Queen's |
'-'e A Dec |
12 Jan |
1549 |
SINBAD THE SAILOR Pantomime by Berwick Kaler |
York, Theatre Royal |
13 Dec |
2 Feb |
1549 |
SLEEPING BEAUTY Pantomime by Bob Black |
Glasgow, King's |
30 Nov |
12 Jan |
1549 |
THE WIZARD OF OZ Revival of adaptation by John Kane from L Frank Baum, songs by ArleniHarburg |
Edinburgh, Royal Lyceum |
1 Dec |
30 Dec |
1550 |
PETER PAN Revival of play by J M Barrie |
Glasgow, Citizens |
1 Dec |
5 Jan |
1551 |
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK Pantomime by Robert Paterson |
Dundee Rep |
3 Dec |
5 Jan |
1553 |
JOCK AND THE BEANSTALK Children's show by Andy Cannon and lain Johnstone (Wee Stones) |
Edinburgh. Traverse |
8 Dec |
23 Dec |
1553 |
EETING BEAUTY Pantomime by Gordon Dougall and Fletcher Mathers |
Glasgow, Tron |
5 Dec |
6 Jan |
1554 |
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS Pantomime, details unknown |
Edinburgh, King's |
1 Dec |
20 Jan |
1556 |
CINDERELLA Pantomime by Liam Rudden |
Musselburgh, Brunton |
24 Nov |
29 Dec |
1556 |
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK Pantomime by Ed Robson |
Cumbemauld |
29 Nov |
28 Dec |
1557 |