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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 8:47:56 GMT
I'm not going to dig SO far back into this thread I give myself a headache on a Monday morning but my 2p worth (speaking as a working class person who didn't 'discover' theatre until my late teens/20s).
On one hand, the Working Class don't 'need' to like or engage with theatre any more than I need to engage with football or rugby. However they should be given the opportunity to, and access to. And yes that does involve a certain amount of 'outreach' or just good old fashioned 'effort'. Because firstly arts is so underfunded now that those in the sorry end of the spectrum state schools are lucky if they watch a DVD of Romeo and Juliet never mind go to the theatre/do proper drama/have a theatre company come in (yes there are exceptions, but for brevity this is the general state of affairs). So kids from those areas get exposed to it less than say, an upper middle class kid in a private school with arts education. Secondly, for matters of money and other things working class parents don't take their kids to the theatre. I remember the one time I asked as a kid (the BFG was on tour and someone I know was going) my Mum said 'How do you think we can afford that?' and that was the end of me asking to go to the theatre for about 15 years.
It does come down to money, but also to feeling like you are 'allowed'. My Mum didn't think we could afford it (probably true) but also she didn't think it was for 'people like us'. Still my Mum asks 'can I wear this' when we go to the theatre (and unless it's hideous I say 'wear whatever you want') because there's this ingrained mentality that theatre is something 'other' for 'other people' and no matter how many Danny Dyer sounding fellas you put on stage, it's something in the make up of theatres as buildings and organisations that has to shift too.
But we don't 'need' to go the theatre. People live their whole lives quite happily without. And I'm very much of the opinion that a love of sport is as enriching as a love of the arts. An ex boyfriend of mine was passionate about cars, that was equally as fulfilling a hobby. And as Kathryn says, we get high calibre entertainment from all sides in a digital age too. BUT the option should be there for those who want it.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 10, 2018 10:29:49 GMT
My Mum didn't think we could afford it (probably true) but also she didn't think it was for 'people like us'. Still my Mum asks 'can I wear this' when we go to the theatre (and unless it's hideous I say 'wear whatever you want') because there's this ingrained mentality that theatre is something 'other' for 'other people' and no matter how many Danny Dyer sounding fellas you put on stage, it's something in the make up of theatres as buildings and organisations that has to shift too. I think this is, in part, a generational thing. My mum had a similar attitude. She now laments the fact that when she was working in London before she had us kids, her and my dad didn't take advantage of the opportunity of her travel already being paid for to go to the theatre. They could have afforded it - it just didn't cross their minds. It's just something that working class people didn't *do*. 'Not for the likes of Us!' Of course, she goes now - her and dad go together if we can find something we think he'll like. (He's a tough customer - I am working on getting him to try something other than a musical/play with music. I think it's partly because he is scared he won't understand something like Shakespeare.) Or she comes with me - she has seen The Winter's Tale, Julius Caesar and is coming to the Donmar Measure for Measure next month. And we love a good musical, obviously. She's a prime example of an older working class person discovering a love of theatre. I don't think there is the same kind of attitude in the younger generation. My sister's kids get taken to the theatre, and there's no sense of it being something alien or not for them - even if they are only seeing musicals or the local panto. But they have so much entertainment clamouring for their attention all the time that it's just one more thing they can see if they want, it's not a some hallowed thing that only rich people get to do. |
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Post by lynette on Sept 10, 2018 11:29:11 GMT
Excuse me for plugging a friend's blog. She is 10 years old. It is gotoashow.com Her parents take her but she does now get some invitations. If you have or know a youngster who might be interested in Theatre, have a look. This small person just got hooked from the first moment she saw a show.
I think what I want to say is about choices. My little friend's parents took her to a show. They take her to all sorts of stuff. When the show thing hooked her, they can afford to follow up. It might have been football. Or fishing. Both require a certain amount of expenditure. So the hope is that people get the choices. That is why school is so important. It can offer one or two or more of the choices that parents can’t.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 10, 2018 13:08:19 GMT
That is true. My school took me to live theatre *and* live athletics *and* out to museums. It so happens that it was the theatre and the museums that really took...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 14:21:25 GMT
I really agree with @emicardiff about some working class people feeling that they don’t belong in Theatre spaces. I felt that too for a long time. It is only now as an older adult, after a lifetime of Theatre going, that I feel more comfortable. Some spaces still feel intimidating. Producers talk about making spaces more welcoming for w/c kids but when those kids see the work they may end up wondering if there is any point given that very few w/c people are commissioned or produced.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 14:51:23 GMT
I really agree with @emicardiff about some working class people feeling that they don’t belong in Theatre spaces. I felt that too for a long time. It is only now as an older adult, after a lifetime of Theatre going, that I feel more comfortable. Some spaces still feel intimidating. Producers talk about making spaces more welcoming for w/c kids but when those kids see the work they may end up wondering if there is any point given that very few w/c people are commissioned or produced. yes 100% I'm currently in an email conversation helping someone's disseration on this very point. It's "not all working class" and "not all theatres" but a large number. I feel, for example far more welcome in big West End or Broadway theatres because they attract what I would call in my head 'normal people' those who buy a ticket once a year as a treat, or to see a famous or whatever. And therefore it's a mix- yes some well off folks, but also I look around and see tourists, and men in scruffy shorts, and people straight from work and I think 'as long as you can scrape the pennies together you're allowed in' (the pennies being a different side of the issue in my mind here). Where I don't feel comfortable is theatres I deem to be 'theatre people theatres' so even having worked there the Sherman in Cardiff feels like it's judging me for stepping in the doors. I don't feel comfortable, I don't hang out there after a show. Similarly certain fringe theatres in London, I feel like everyone knows I don't belong in. I VERY much feel like this as a writer/employee of Welsh theatre. I say often, 'these places aren't for people like me' because they can hear my accent, know my address (in a not posh area) know what school I went to etc etc. And ultimately those spaces aren't for me. An interesting aside. Those who know CommonWealth theatre company. Rhiannon (the co-founder) and I were in the same drama class at school. We had this conversation recently that even in drama class it was felt this wasn't a world for 'the likes of us' we were just learning about what other people did, made, watched etc. Her take is somewhat different in that it's very much about putting 'people like us' at the heart of it, which I agree with wholeheartedly. But also I think, we just need to make it so Working Class people WANT to and CAN go and see all the other stories too. Working Class people like tap dancing too given a chance.... Weirdly, I always feel the Nash is for everyone. Either old Nicky H did a number on me with the marketing when I first started going there, but because it's a building with coffee shops and a bar and outside seating and nobody ever tells you off for just having a wander or a sit or using the loos, I feel more like the theatre and the work it does is for anyone. (thus ends my job application haha) |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 10, 2018 19:39:04 GMT
I don’t even know what working class is any more. Does it mean you have to work to live? That would be 90% of us. Is it an income level? Is it social mobility? What exactly IS working class?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 20:37:21 GMT
What exactly IS working class? A bogeyman used to scare readers of tabloid newspapers. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 21:01:25 GMT
I don’t even know what working class is any more. Does it mean you have to work to live? That would be 90% of us. Is it an income level? Is it social mobility? What exactly IS working class? I tend to think of it as a subsistence level of income or below. This is complicated, however, by heritage and your formative years create an identity that people can carry with them through their lives. So, in that case, working class identity is retained long after, especially if other family members retain their previous economic status. It used to be based on the nature of jobs but the modern economy has changed markedly so a non manual job is quite often going to pay less than a manual one. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 11, 2018 7:14:43 GMT
So is the question really “is British theatre guilty of failing the poor?”. Because that’s different.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2018 7:39:23 GMT
So is the question really “is British theatre guilty of failing the poor?”. Because that’s different. No, because it's more complicated than that, as Nicholas' mammoth post attests to and as my caveats make clear. It's partly economic (and I made clear that this is my personal benchmark but it isn't one shared by most who are involved in the area) but upbringing, culture and other factors also have their place.
To take my own case, my own income and education puts me definitely outside of the working class on those scores but my identity was forged in my formative years and you don't necessarily lose that. As my family history of being working class goes way back and my parents are still in that socioeconomic grouping then I retain that working class identity. I am a visitor to the middle class (and to be honest, I still feel like an outsider). On the other hand, a person who has a middle class background but who has fallen on hard economic times may come under the definition of poverty but their prior education and upbringing lives with them and this affects their attitudes and things such as theatregoing. If you were brought up to do so, or told that it was within your sphere, then you don't lose that.
Some may say that they've 'escaped' their upbringing but that's up to them and requires a good degree of self examination.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 11, 2018 11:47:15 GMT
So is the question really “is British theatre guilty of failing the poor?”. Because that’s different. My mum and dad consider themselves working class. But they would not call themselves poor - they're 'comfortably off'. Like a lot of working class Baby Boomers they worked hard all their lives, bought their own house, helped their kids on in life, and are now enjoying a reasonably secure retirement on Dad's company pension. |
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Post by jaqs on Sept 11, 2018 16:15:28 GMT
I don’t even know what working class is any more. Does it mean you have to work to live? That would be 90% of us. Is it an income level? Is it social mobility? What exactly IS working class? |
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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 11, 2018 18:40:28 GMT
On the other hand, a person who has a middle class background but who has fallen on hard economic times may come under the definition of poverty but their prior education and upbringing lives with them and this affects their attitudes and things such as theatregoing. If you were brought up to do so, or told that it was within your sphere, then you don't lose that. This definitely resonates with me. I've never had much money (brought up by a single parent) but I've always thought of myself as middle class. From a young age I was taken to the theatre for children's concerts and ballet, even if we were in the cheapest seats in the gods, and to museums, art galleries, etc. so I consider my interests to be middle class even if my income isn't. I suppose a natural RP accent & 7 years at private schools (having been very fortunate to get an Assisted Place just before Blair abolished them) help too. The only theatre I go to where I feel I don't really earn enough is Opera Holland Park. Everywhere else, including the Royal Opera House, I'm fine with. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 11, 2018 19:12:47 GMT
I got taken to Hillsborough. Until my dad realised he was on a hiding to nothing and gave up bless him.
The meat pies were nice though.
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Post by Nicholas on Sept 29, 2018 19:50:01 GMT
The product of theatre’s something I’d like to address. The product of theatre:
So…
The reason why some people are not going to the theatre because the product doesn’t appeal to them. We can dress it up as much as you want but that’s the fact of it. That’s like Jack Wills saying “Working-class people aren’t buying our clothes. They mustn’t hate our version of the product. They must hate the product: clothes”. Or a vegetarian restaurant wondering why they almost never attract carnivores.
I’d argue that most people see theatre (like cinema, like going out for a meal) as an occasional treat a handful of times a year, and we should divide the product into literary/political/theatrical and populist. Does it matter that Cats isn’t Das Kapital – Proletaricats? It’s escapism, for a treat Les Mis is better than London Road. That people choose to go when it’s GILT or Kid’s Week or when they can proves they like the product. That Coriolanus, War Horse, Phantom, and Billy Elliott all stormed the box office based on one day in UK Cinemas proves people want theatre - even SRB’s Lear would have out-done Captain America that week (obvs we can't break this down by region, and NT Live’s still stupidly costly, but it’s fair to assume most of these audiences are theatregoers who can’t go to the theatre) - that’s quite a diverse list of shows people are flocking to! That Jamie and Kinky Boots are thriving where Made in Dagenham and The Girls and Stand Up Stand Up Stand Up and Sing flopped proves that when people have choice, they choose (in the case of the great MiD, wrongly). But it proves that people like the product.
And also, isn’t the product associated with London, trains, the whole shebang? I love theatre but often hate the four hours it takes to get there and get home. My local is still 40 minutes away. I could afford the time and money, I felt at home in London theatres. Not everyone can, not everyone does. We can make the product better.
Do you want to know what REALLY got this subject under my skin? No no-one cares shut up already It was the smash hit show Act Without Words II at the Barbican. The cast was two. The set was a piece of cardboard. The theatre was the foyer of a block of flats. And yet, this accessible exciting ‘theatre’ was a London-centric snob-fest where a bunch of middle-class consumers commuted in and paid £20 per person for this privilege. This could have been for everyone so easily! But it wasn’t. Why not?
Last year, artistically, Punchdrunk took it further. But rather than tell a story about contemporary London to contemporary Londoners, it told a story about ancient theatre to ancient theatregoers – for fifty f***ing pounds a ticket.
And in 2011, The Passion electrified Port Talbot by being free and inclusive, prominent and progressive, and with the right audience in mind. Oh...
It’s not ‘the product’. It’s what the product sells, where it is, how much it costs. Bring revivals to the streets – as that Beckett did – and it changes things. Bring new plays to the streets – as The Passion did (without any clichés or politics of class) – and the people flock! Whilst it obviously incentivised some new theatregoers, not everyone involved in The Passion is now passionate about theatre, but whether as a theatre bug or random escapism, people like the product for different reasons, and for many Michael Sheen’s Jesus nailed it.
I can thus imagine that a promenade show about Grenfell, say – written semi-verbatim by someone like Vivienne Franzmann, cast with actors from that community, set and staged in council flats touring across the country – would be amazing, accessible, and so powerful in its message and its medium that it implements real change. I can also imagine it being the theatrical bug that bites its audience – that Fanny and Alexander and Follies are suddenly filled with families from Scun-thorpe [edited, because apparently S****horpe doesn’t get through the censors...] who fell in love with this. But how does theatre actually present relevant London working-class stories? In Islington for Islington. The Tricycle stages an immediate response, and so affected are its audience it that they themselves riot. ‘The product’, you say...
(This show just premiered. It seems intent on taking theatre away from theatres and into its right location, telling an important story to its intended audience. I’d love to know how it’s engaging in outreach, accessibility, and bringing in its target audience. We’re seeing a few shows like this - companies like Clean Break, Cardboard Citizens, Kestrel, which work within a disadvantaged community to represent it - but often they end up trapped in conventional expensive inaccessible buildings, Royal Courts or Royal Exchanges, told to the wrong audience. I mentioned Cathy, which played the Barbican but played prisons too. I loved Franzmann’s lived-in livewire Pests which played upstairs at the Royal Court, so felt like a story knowingly told for an outside audience - sensitively, but not inclusively. Whilst good starts, Helena Thompson’s The Burning Tower seems the best mix of medium and message and mission statement thus far. Perhaps it’ll fail, perhaps it’ll be unpopular, perhaps it’ll prove that yes this audience hates theatre - but at least it’s going out of its way to prove that. And if it succeeds? Well, it’s sold out. I was boooooooooooooooorn by the river…)
You CANNOT produce THREE Importance of Being Earnests this decade and then earnestly go “Why isn’t Earnest appealing to the same audiences who prefers Eastenders – it’s not us, it’s them?”. You CANNOT limit perfectly accessible shows to London alone, and complain that poorer regional residents – hell, poorer Barbican residents – aren’t forking out for it. You CANNOT blame the audience for disliking the ‘product’ when look at the product!
Frankly, any medium that presents three Earnests in a decade is failing everyone anyway.
I don’t even know what working class is any more. Does it mean you have to work to live? That would be 90% of us. Is it an income level? Is it social mobility? What exactly IS working class?
Oh, easy question...
Income? Definitely yes – but not just that. Accent? Loaded with assumptions. ‘Work’? We all work! Family? So it’s hereditary, like porphyria – mebbe, but then what about social mobility? Community? Kind of… State of mind? Yes – but what the f*** does that mean? Cultural standing? Perhaps, but isn’t that depressing if it’s permanent. Social Mobility? I’d argue in some ways you move classes and in other ways you don’t. A chip on your shoulder which you pass on to your children? Clearly something my mother didn’t have and nor do I… Wanting to seem cool? Apparently. Voting for Brexit? Statistically yes, but…
One thing Gardner’s article raises, that I decided not to tackle, is “white working-class” BECAUSE WE JUST NEED MORE WHITE PEOPLE ON STAGE. The differences (economically, culturally, geographically) between a former miner and a second-generation immigrant in East London are profound – but both come under this class umbrella. Compare Windrush and Brexit, two working-class issues. Can you define both with one term, then write a two-hour play solving both concerns? And this is where it gets really tricky. “Does theatre fail them both?” – for various reasons, yes. “Does making Maxine Peake associate artist in Manchester ‘succeed’ either?” – no, of course not! But does Maxine Peake continue to provide working-class successes in theatre? Yes! In simply asking “Does theatre fail…” we’re oversimplifying, and in reaching for one solution we’re going on a wild goose chase.
So to help with your definition, regarding theatre – class is all these things and more except when it isn’t. Accent isn’t class but in some situations accent is class, mostly in situations where class isn’t an issue. And sometimes saying nothing is positive. All clear now? Good, let’s move on…
Maybe at a tangent, maybe not, but Britain is known for "class division" and making people feel they are not wanted in certain environments. What happens in other countries where the culture isn't quite so divided, or at least, not so explicitly?
Well, read this! This article is perfect. It’s relatable. It’s this struggle. It’s Australian.
So… What does that say? Is it a global issue? Apparently… That author doesn’t write about the culture of theatre, but the language. So, do we have to discuss the language of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Strindberg, Simon Stone, and Neil Simon? Maybe we do. Maybe it’s relevant. Kill me now.
And you know what? Somewhere in Australia, someone was reading that going “Oh, woe is you. Try being me – an aboriginal theatregoer”.
(My only caveat, though, would be NT Live. Shows ‘transfer’ not just across the country but around the world thanks to NT Live – and I broadly think a) it’s wonderfully done and b) it’s a miracle that Angels In America and Jamie and A View from the Bridge are global. However, NT Live is UK Theatre 2018. What does this list say about today’s Britain? What class hang-ups does make global?)
Nicholas, thank you for this. So many points to consider we should convene a conference. I think you might have been thinking about this topic for a while. One small point I would take up with you. About classroom teaching: I’m told that sometimes this is pretty dire. I myself taught Shakespeare, brilliantly of course. I see your point about leaving your own 'context' for want of a better word at the door and this not being a good thing. But consider how doing exactly that can free you. In the classroom you can be Macbeth or Mark Antony or whoever you like, male female, old, young, happy, sad, in love, jealous. You can explore blame, responsibility, relationships in a safe place, within a play. My experience is that this is liberating for all children. You can shake off your gender, your class, your level of wealth and actually enact the consequences. This applies to other dramatists too of course but Shakespeare allows it more, offers more and questions more. IMO. 🤪
Oh, only about twenty years.
That’s beautifully put! My only contention is that most syllabi ask us not to put ourselves into the texts, but to preserve them in formaldehyde. I’ve dug out my GCSE coursework – ““Mercutio is an insignificant, comic character in ‘Romeo and Juliet’. How far do you agree with this statement?”. I just repeated what we were taught in class – Mercutio’s like Mercury, there’s a lot about sex (that proves it – I’d definitely left my 'context' at the door if teenage me was writing anything about sex). So, as a kid, was I that academically informed about the Greek messenger God? Or was I parroting my teacher to tick enough mark-scheme boxes to get a C-A*?
“Mercutio is like Mercury” gets you a C; “Mercutio is like me” doesn’t. Which is better for kids and for theatre? Who cares; which is better for your school? Ideally, every teacher would be as talented and caring and enthusiastic and inspiring as you (and this is how I get the grades...), but not every teacher can be. Worse, to get the school’s necessary pass-mark quota, no teacher needs to be – they just need to teach the mark scheme. When we’re marked on dull historical fact, is it any more than a historical document? Besides, is there the simple ability to ‘stage’ the plays in a classroom of 20+? You’re 100% right and your image of Shakespeare in the classroom is ideal – but that’s if these playing opportunities are there. Otherwise, you copy Dr Miller and Lord Olivier.
And by the way, gotoashow.wordpress.com/ is wonderful! Thanks for flagging it up, that’s a kid with real flair and real talent!
It’s not like anyone *needs* to head to a theatre to be entertained these days. You can access top-notch entertainment literally anywhere with a decent internet connection using a device that a great many people routinely carry in their pocket. If you haven’t been bitten by the theatre bug then it takes something special to get people out of the comfort and convenience of their home-based entertainment routines.
“Reason not the need!” I’d argue, though, theatre fails the working class; but they don’t ‘need’ the theatre - theatre ‘succeeds’ for me, an obsessive who ‘needs’ it - and theatre ‘succeeds’ for my brother; who’s a bit meh on the topic. At best I go 100 times a year; at best he goes 10 times. We have so many identical formative theatrical experiences, but he doesn’t care and I care too much (he watches a LOT more Netflix than I). So why has it succeeded that non-theatregoer? Yeah, he didn’t ‘need’ to see the Alan Yentob musical where I was wetting myself at the idea; but he had the choice. Both he (occasionally) and I (obsessively) feel a) comfortable at, b) geographically close to, and c) represented in the theatre. For us, theatre is as accessible and fair as that device in our pockets (that said, to this day, we both tidy up our accents in the theatre, presumably subconsciously, just to fit in at these ridiculous buildings, so even we still feel some subconscious discomfort). For working-class audiences?
Being bitten by the theatre bug is one thing, and I do think great potential theatregoers/theatremakers are being denied this by a) not having the opportunities to go, b) not seeing themselves and their stories on stage, c) not having the opportunities to make and tell their own stories on stage, and d) the financial and geographical issues regarding regular theatregoing.
But any old entertainment? Yeah, Angry Birds is entertaining on your phone, but that’s letting self-perpetuating London-centric snobbery off the hook! If you live in a regional council house (say Cornwall/Norfolk/Newcastle), maybe the Hiddlestonanus is up your alley, because he gets half-naked. Is there enough follow-up entertainment? I think 50/50. NT Live* is good, but would be great if its representation was – how many Cornish or Norfolk or Geordie accents or actors or characters have there been on NT Live, oh right, virtually none. Tours would be good, but most post-London tours are B-casts. And if the best escapism’s in London, look up a train from Cornwall or Norfolk or Newcastle to London… Now, bless the likes of Sheridan Smith, Tom Burke, Carrie Hope Fletcher. Bless Bill Kenwright, who makes musicals cheap and accessible. And bless Icke and Imelda and Mischief Theatre for doing theatre on the telly. Obvs, huge imperfections here - mostly that many of these theatrical experiences aren’t actually live theatre - but it’s a start.
And anywho, you can watch A Doll’s House on a device in your pocket! Obviously that’s a different form of entertainment to the Young Vic, but a positive overall - but if we’re showing how great theatre can be on your phone, shouldn’t tours and NT Lives show how great theatre truly is? Couldn’t that device in you pocket be the best introduction to theatre, if a broader, cheaper, representative form of NT Live was THAT accessible? I’m not sure - and I feel it’s spiteful to introduce theatre like this and then go "Come visit us in London" when train prices...
And as we know from recent movie blockbusters, representation in populism matters. So sure, maybe you just wanna see Starlight Express, but even then a train sounding a bit like you matters.
The next time you go to the theatre, though, let me know whether that show is accessible to that hypothetical kid in a council house in Cornwall or Norfolk or Newcastle (I keep saying kids, it’s not great for their grandparents...). If not (and the answer will be no), tell me whether the NEED of the person sat next to you is truly greater than that kid’s need. If not, it’s a postcode lottery and a snob’s medium. Horse to water, of course – bring that kid to London, they might hate it! But it’s the opportunity to do so for which we should be fighting. What do you have on your device that you don’t have at the theatre? Opportunity and representation. If theatre fails the working class, that’s how I’d define succeeding - opportunities to visit that you don’t have to take, and representation in the shows. And then, if Angry Birds on your phone is better? Your opportunity! Your choice! Your loss...
*Which NT Lives are popular, nationally and globally? The ones with posh people as kings (because mostly celebs esp. in theatre are posh, it self-perpetuates, kill me now). How is the UK represented in terms of multiculturalism and the coding of accents? Most leads are white (more so than the London stage overall, I’d guess), most non-RP accents are coded as villainy or idiocy or the like. I think NT Live is less diverse than the NT or overall London/national theatre. This is the theatre we present to the regions and to the world. I love that we send artistically daring shows, and shows about topics controversial in other countries, to other countries - that in a country where Jamie being out and proud might be illegal Everybody's Talking About Jamie gets staged. But in other ways, regarding class, race, diversity, opportunities, I’m really not comfortable with what our National Theatre Live says about our nation…
Final few quickfire points. At the moment, Poet In Da Corner is on. Mightn’t this be the bug that bites? Dizzie Rascal broke a ceiling there, became a real voice for urban Londoners, and his generation paved the way for mainstream grime, Plan B’s movie, comic re-interpretations, perhaps Kate Tempest, and of course the great Stormzy. The telly took note. Movies took note. The world took note. The proms took note! Theatre’s taken note – 15 years too late. That’s unforgiveable. I’m not arguing “Every show needs to be GRIME!”, I’m arguing “90% should Maybe, instead, three or four shows a year in London, and more in the regions, should be told by a broader array of artistic, cultural and regional voices – especially contemporary ones – whilst we also revive Salad Days and The Winslow Boy, because, you know, theatre can be a broad church and cater for everyone…”. That’s it. But it shouldn’t have taken 15 years for a show like this to emerge as one part of a broader season.
And, you know, money and London. Perhaps Poet In Da Corner – like its album – is the ‘something special’ that gets people out of the comfort zone, perhaps it's just entertainment for Dizzie fans… but hobnobbing in f***ing Chelsea? The London-centric arrogance and blind spots of theatremakers would be laughable were it not failing most of the nation, even where it’s this close to succeeding.
On accent, on Shakespeare. Can King Lear be working-class? That should be today’s GCSE question. I’ve spent a lifetime thinking this through, and… I don’t know. A king can’t be, they’re the ruling class! He can have a traditionally working-class accent – but accent isn’t class. He can be coded with working-class signifiers in clothes or characteristics or trinkets, but then isn’t that judgemental? We can locate it in a working-class community, but doesn’t that fundamentally change and lessen the national tragedy? You can cast a great working-class hero of an actor like Pete Postlethwaite – but then isn’t it offensive to take a Hollywood career as great and diverse as his and say “Even at 60, after all that, playing Shakespeare, he’s still him off of Brassed Off and Labour Ads, he’s always working-class”? Can contemporary class politics come into a 400-year-old play? A large part of me thinks “No”.
The Fool, however, is often presented as working-class – often having a traditionally working-class region’s accent, being made to look poorer, to carry class signifiers, and to be laughed at because of contemporary class politics. The killers in Norris’ Macbeth spoke funny, wore “chavvy” clothes and drank lager from the can – loaded with class coding, to be laughed at and disliked. You can define working-class as money, societal position, accent, culture: the comic, mock-able characters in Shakespeare in 2018 usually tick these boxes.
And genuine question - how would you feel if Goneril was Geordie, Reagan RP and Cordelia Cornish? If we can have place-blind casting, you shouldn’t bat an eye. If accent isn’t class (and it isn’t) these accents mean nothing. But why haven’t we had this kind of diversity on stage?
Final footnotes. I appreciate that my original post was ridiculously long and many of you didn’t read it (good thing this is shorter...), but if you didn’t, I’d hugely appreciate if you read my second point – about schools – and my final point – about NT Live. That’d only take you five minutes, and I think (more so than my loved-up defence of Sunshine On Leith as this generation’s What Is To Be Done?) they’re good microcosms of blind spots.
Gardner’s article is very much about who makes theatre. It’s indisputable that most people who make theatre are not working-class. On stage, this self-perpetuates, which is why we can comment. Change oodles off-stage, though, and we’re doing better. We need positive opportunities backstage.
Finally, you. You, too. Be selfish. When did you last see a working-class new play? How diverse are the revivals you see? Are theatrical leads cast with national diversity? Do you really hear a diverse range of stories on stage? How come all the best actors today happen to sound Eton educated? Do the actors in today’s theatre represent the country today? By limiting what stories are told and who by, theatre’s failing to tell the most relevant, broadest and best of stories. Sod the working-class, theatre is failing YOU!
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Post by Nicholas on Mar 3, 2019 14:43:44 GMT
This again! After reading the UN’s eye-opening report on extreme poverty (it’s a 30-minute read and will be the best 30 minutes of your year), I immediately wanted to come on here and ask “Families must choose between food or heat, parents must starve for their children, mothers are forced into sex work – how can we get these people to see & Juliet?”. It may sound flippant to consider the theatre or the arts in the context of our country’s extreme poverty; instead, with its benefits, we should be asking more about arts access. I’d like to, ultimately, ask you a question about priorities, to which I don’t know the answer.
To list just the central gist of the UN report: swathes of our country simply don’t have the money to live. Food and bills can’t be both paid. Only parents or children get a full meal. The jobs aren’t there, nor are the benefits. Sex work pays for school clothes. Schools aren’t helping out, because they can’t afford it. Obviously, further opportunities cost more thus aren’t available.
Why isn’t it flippant to veer from this to La Traviata? Because choral singing is better than morphine. The health benefits are astonishing, the benefits of community profound, and the skills of teamwork and hard work and are great for everyday life. The UN touch upon community as a need, not a luxury. Any time arts funding is debated, the benefits raised are indisputable; are the benefits felt by everyone?
One issue that the UN also mentions, especially regarding the B-word, is identity. As another report suggested, after decades of feeling embarrassed about our working-class identity (shrinking not expanding what ‘Englishness’ means), we asked our country “Would you rather be English or European?”. That went well.
More pressingly, perhaps, many suggest issues like knife crime – on the increase after nine years of austerity – are the results of the closing down of libraries, community centres, and school facilities – ultimately, closing of opportunities. Rather than expand their identities via the arts or sports, young people’s identities close off into violence and gangs. Sincerely, the lack of drama classes (etc) may be responsible for young lives cut short, not metaphorically, but on our streets.
And one final issue here. Identity is often formed at school, via class, classes, classmates. Identity is also intertwined with opportunity. If your school has the chance, you can see yourself as an Oxbridge graduate, as a doctor, anything. If your school has none of those ‘little extras’ like books or pencils, your future identity is restricted. For children and especially late teens, a lack of long-term future opportunities means that there are few long-term risks to your behaviour now. Nothing offers opportunities more than the arts.
One reason ‘theatre’ fundamentally fails the working class, thus, is because theatre is perhaps the greatest medium to explore identity. Even only going to the theatre, you’re asked to pretend you see horses in a Wooden O. Furthermore, the skills you develop by making theatre are skills that lead to you becoming better: confidence, creativity, questioning. Playing Rosalind, a young girl both has to see Rosalind in herself – what makes her a royal, a rebel, a hero – and see herself in Rosalind – that her voice and face are the voice and face of this hero. Devising a piece about contemporary Britain where the Brexiters play Remainers and the Remainers play Brexiters (demanding empathy), whilst the political problems wouldn’t be solved, some of the ideological ones would be less stubbornly held. Every day I take the confidence, the inventiveness, the extroversion I developed in school drama lessons and apply them to day-to-day life. Too, most of my personality has been shaped by seeing so much theatre, and forcing myself into that imaginative, empathetic state. That the opportunities to act and to attend are untenable for swathes of our population – almost solely down class lines – should make us sick.
So arts aren’t just ‘a little extra’. Theatre for working class communities is important; this goes to all the arts. Choral singing can be the difference between wellness and remission, or develop a positive community path. The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra did wonders when poorer children were encouraged into violence (because Venezuela is obviously the place to emulate), and similar schemes work here too. Surely giving every school a strong music department will have long-term benefits from career opportunities to the NHS?
Libraries are perhaps more important, and more tangible. In my first post I mentioned the class divide here, whereby poorer schoolkids were two years of reading behind, and how (OBVIOUSLY) a lack of access to books means a lack of opportunities for short-term academic progress and long-term academic (and potentially real-world) success.
All arts – photography, dance, baking, rapping – are door-openers and health-benefitting (sport too), and theatre’s performative and empathetic skills should be celebrated too.
School budgets, the EBACC, have been criminal with regards to the arts. It has actively discouraged people from doing things that help the country, help the economy, help themselves. Arts aren’t funded in schools. Instead, arts funding goes, almost entirely, to big buildings in the middle of an expensive city. All arts, including theatre, fail the working class, due to our subsidies; this failure has a trickle-up effect for our NHS, our safety, our referenda, our future.
The question I’d like to ask, thus, perhaps I shouldn’t ask at all. Were we living in a well-balanced, strong-and-stable economy, we wouldn’t need an either/or. Of course schools and arts should get due funding; however, we should ask who that funding helps, and if it can be used to help more people. As it is, though, it is an either/or, so:
Where should arts funding and subsidies go – theatres, or communities? As best I understand it – please correct me if I’m wrong – arts subsidies go not to the distribution of art, but the making of it. Therefore free museums, and subsidised theatre, are funded by the have-nots’ taxes but attended by the haves, and all the benefits (many of which are most beneficial at the bottom of the economic pole) are felt by the elite. Therefore:
Should funding go simply to theatres to make the biggest and best theatre they can, to appeal to regular theatregoers? Or should some of a county’s theatre funding go to the county’s schools, arts charities, community centres, and anything that offers the less well off the access and opportunities? Or, perhaps, should theatres/schools/charities that work with working-class and less-well-off people – Joan LIttlewood then, Anna Scher now – get as much funding as big buildings and national institutions? A collaboration, maybe – theatres should get funding for their in-house staging, but only if they use the funds to bring in, or tour to, their local ‘left behind’ communities?
And this is true of all arts funding – to galleries, concert halls, opera houses, literary funds. Is it enough to fund the buildings and the institutions, or should arts funding incentivise its orchestras and artists and actors to go to libraries and schools and estates and bring the arts where they’re needed?
Or, broader - if the arts are so important to our health, how can we make them for all, sans subsidies? What can we do to bring our theatre to where it's actually needed?
I’ve mentioned school a lot, but choral singing has health benefits for all ages. Books, whatever age, are empathy machines. Many am-dram groups aren’t young wannabe actors, but people later in life realising the benefits of this complex and questioning medium. Therefore, shouldn’t we be looking at arts subsidies for struggling communities? Mobile libraries and reading groups SPECIFICALY for, say, jobseekers and food-bank users? Community choirs where community centres have been closed? And of course theatre groups and theatre trips for people financially and geographically priced out? Obviously it’s not either/or exactly – but perhaps a county’s arts budget should be, say, between 50/50 and 75/25 theatre/community.
Personally, I can see both reasons for both sides, but I’d clearly veer towards communities. I do truly feel that arts funding spent better could save lives, boost the economy, help the NHS; all the evidence is there. And whilst people often cite and celebrate the financial and health benefits of the arts, no-one questions whether the benefits are accessible to the right people.
If the NT had to boost ticket prices (pricing me out of a show or two a year) to allow working-class communities (esp. those in extremer situations) access to the arts – and the social opportunities and health benefits that entailed – I’d happily miss a Common or a Macbeth here and there, and let the benefits of this great medium be broadly felt. Would you? We shouldn’t be in a situation where it’s an either/or to schools having libraries or not, but that’s where we are.
But it’s a passing thought. I’m sure many of you feel the exact opposite. There are many good reasons either way. I’d love to know your thoughts.
P.S. Also, semi-regular grumble about blogs and money – unless bloggers (who are better critics than ‘critics’, Letts and Treneman dear god) get paid, bloggers/critics (gatekeepers) are financially secure regular theatregoers (obvs middle-class), which preserves our blind-spot of failing the working-class. Perhaps funding should go to, say, an NT scheme that subsidises ten diverse bloggers for a year?
P.P.S. It’s also been about a year since Lyn Gardner wrote her article, and whilst I felt her article was a fascinating statement, I feel that this is an issue we ignore in the long term. Things are getting better (the Royal Court and Donmar are working with Kestrel and Clean Break so the opportunities and benefits are spread; companies like Cardboard Citizens do great work) but good enough? We should be asking this question – both in terms of on-stage representation but also offstage opportunities – more regularly. I’d love to know what Gardner thinks about the issues she raises, and what her interviewees think too. Looking at the last year, and the year to come, who is on our stages, and who is making the shows – and is it enough? And again - what can we do to help these institutions?
P.P.P.S. I can easily argue “Fundamentally a theoretical budget should go into a non-existent food-bank community-choir” to an insular forum of like-minded people and feel I’m doing something. I’m not. I want to. I’m probably not alone in being embarrassingly ignorant of companies and charities that are working to demand or implement action in this area. In any way – simply setting up a standing order, or hands-on involvement – I know some of you do charity work, school work, actually understand these issues in practice. If anyone has any practical advice on how to help with an issue like this – especially being evangelical about the arts, especially theatre – I’m sure many would appreciate hearing it. I really would. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 16:27:57 GMT
Wonderful, thought provoking stuff once again, Nicholas. Those in charge of arts subsidy tend towards doing ‘just enough’, when balancing community against other factors. In the likely upcoming ‘Austerity 2.0’, they must ringfence the community element at least and preferably increase its percentage at the expense of the more financially solvent companies.
At a personal level, like with green issues and changing personal behaviour, I’d like to think that the more secure would also look to their own subsidy of others. paying what you can afford is a start but there are also other ways to promote, even demand, altruism. One thing I would look at is linking Premium pricing to subsidised or free tickets. Rather than just being a status symbol, paying premium could automtically pay for a ticket or tickets to be offered to an under represented group. Membership schemes could include a levy, so that anyone using it to get cheap tickets also pays for someone under represented to attend that theatre.
At the moment there is a lot of visible take in ticket pricing and not enough visible give. It’s a creative industry, so start being more creative.
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Post by crowblack on Mar 3, 2019 16:54:17 GMT
I'm always impressed by how very class diverse the Manchester Royal Exchange audience is. Overhearing conversations in the bogs and atrium there are often schoolkids with scallyish slang and strong accents. They sat very attentively through Mother Courage last Monday and the Post Show talk. It was the theatre that really helped kick off my love of drama - my schoolfriends thought it was a weird eccentricity, so I'd go on my own but with the post show talks and actors and directors being generous with their time to chat afterwards it has always felt so welcoming. Liverpool's Everyman has a similarly mixed audience. They have to attract them to survive. I haven't seen its equivalent in London - with a large wealthy upper middle class it doesn't seem to need to attract working class audiences to fill its coffers.
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Post by lynette on Mar 3, 2019 18:11:40 GMT
All very puzzling to me. My first Shakespeare was Richard III about as far as you can get from my origins, class, ethnicity, income level etc... I was gripped. I was fourteen. I don’t need a play to be about me. In fact when I have been to a play about the kind of person most people would say I am now, I’m usually disappointed. How far could I be from, for example, the AIDS crisis in New York , but I very much appreciated The Inheritance. So why should plays be about 'working class people' to attract 'working class ' people?When I was also a nipper, say sixteen, I discovered books like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and that led to modern writers, contemporary novels and so on. I wasn’t royal, I wasn’t a Borstal inmate. Just good plays, just good books. The thing is taking children to the theatre and getting them to the library.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 18:24:57 GMT
All very puzzling to me. My first Shakespeare was Richard III about as far as you can get from my origins, class, ethnicity, income level etc... I was gripped. I was fourteen. I don’t need a play to be about me. In fact when I have been to a play about the kind of person most people would say I am now, I’m usually disappointed. How far could I be from, for example, the AIDS crisis in New York , but I very much appreciated The Inheritance. So why should plays be about 'working class people' to attract 'working class ' people?When I was also a nipper, say sixteen, I discovered books like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and that led to modern writers, contemporary novels and so on. I wasn’t royal, I wasn’t a Borstal inmate. Just good plays, just good books. The thing is taking children to the theatre and getting them to the library. This isn’t about subject matter at all, it’s about access. The use of working class characters/situations as exoticism for the middle class theatregoer is, in fact, part of the problem if the suggestion is that theatres are using it to promote access. Subject matter changes organically in response to audience and society (I would argue not the other way around), so get the audence in and then things should develop to keep that audience involved. |
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Post by Nicholas on Mar 3, 2019 18:40:19 GMT
All very puzzling to me. My first Shakespeare was Richard III about as far as you can get from my origins, class, ethnicity, income level etc... I was gripped. I was fourteen. I don’t need a play to be about me. In fact when I have been to a play about the kind of person most people would say I am now, I’m usually disappointed. How far could I be from, for example, the AIDS crisis in New York , but I very much appreciated The Inheritance. So why should plays be about 'working class people' to attract 'working class ' people?When I was also a nipper, say sixteen, I discovered books like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and that led to modern writers, contemporary novels and so on. I wasn’t royal, I wasn’t a Borstal inmate. Just good plays, just good books. The thing is taking children to the theatre and getting them to the library.
But our budget doesn’t bloody cover books! Being represented in the theatre or the library is one thing, but more bloody importantly – How can we take children to the theatre or the library?
For me, our school theatre included Black Watch (Scottish squaddies), Endgame (Beckett’s nihilistic afterlife?), My Fair Lady (well I guess that’s about class) – two of my favourite productions ever there, and a musical I love, all about people VERY unlike me. But a) we paid for most of them ourselves and my mummy and daddy have money (though blimey did they scrimp and save for me), and b) I lived in Newbury so being taken to the theatre was no issue. Given the economic diversity of my state school, it was clear that even then, as 14-year-olds, class and money was dictating who would and wouldn't get access. And that's Newbury. Move to Manchester and your only option is Home – if it’s helping underprivileged people see The Producers, that’s wonderful news. Move to Penrith, Sunderland, S****horpe, how can you afford it?
The only answer I can see is a real question in how we subsidise the arts, and who for.
So personally, I’d love to see part of my tax money go to the National Theatre to make another Angels in America or Here We Go, but part of it go on a Richard III that can tour the country. I’d be very happy to half the number of Entry Pass seats for wealthier 16-25 year olds, but have shows that can reach 16-25 year olds in their community centres or libraries or schools across the country. I’d happily – happily – not see the NT Macbeth so that my local school can.
(That goes for an older generation too, I’d really like to see a theatre company to stage Richard III or The Inheritance near/for jobcentres and food banks)
Just to repeat myself, this is important as more than a hypothetical. Look at the science behind communal arts. This isn’t just an issue of “Theatre needs to reflect people” (though it does, sometimes), it’s also “Theatre NEEDS (for the NHS, community, and economic prosperity) to be accessible to people”. Shouldn’t getting Richard III actually into schools (esp. 'working-class', dare I say poorer ones) be a priority? And if it comes out of your tax money – or it disadvantages you from seeing more shows at the Nash – how would you feel?
But regarding origins, class, ethnicity, income level… I’m wetting myself about Jack Thorne’s new play – you know why? He went to the school next to me (we never met), and is clearly going autobiographical. I’ve seen shows about people like me, but “Newbury 1997” – THAT IS MY ORIGIN, CLASS, ETHNICITY, INCOME LEVEL! It’s terrifyingly exact! But you know who can’t see it? Most people from Newbury 1997. Not everyone’s mummy or daddy had or has money - back at school that REALLY did dictate library and theatre access. Newbury to London is £30, cheapest tickets are £15. Newbury's a fairly divided city class-wise (just look at our MP), so whilst some people I know can go (largely those whose mummies and daddies had the spare £50 to take us to the theatre as kids), none of my school friends, still living in Newbury, or co-workers from my past life can afford to go - and they're OK financially, unlike other Newburians. Even my mummy and daddy can't really spend £45 on a whim, even they as Newburians are priced out. Amazingly even kilometres away, people of the EXACT origins, class, ethnicity and income level are out of the reach of that origin, class, ethnicity and income level. If (also after Poet In Da Corner similarly impressed Sloane Square types and not Dizzie Rascal types) that doesn’t give us pause for thought about finance and accessibility…
So that’s it – I now feel that the only option to secure what you want (diverse theatre for young people) is subsidised theatre to fundamentally change WHAT is subsidised. This will, thus, price you and I as regular theatregoers out of great shows, but I feel it’s a sacrifice worth making. I’d love to know your thought on your tax money. That’s not personal…
All in all, I hated Mary Poppins 2 because property is theft.
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Post by crowblack on Mar 3, 2019 19:30:26 GMT
It would also be good if we saw the class equivalent of the current societal pressure that now demands people don't black up, and questions films or productions in which able-bodied actors 'crip up', cisgender actors play gay or trans characters etc.. I would love to be living in a society where social mobility and access was so fluid that anyone could play anything - as it was to a degree in the 1960s, where grammar school, regional, working and lower-middle-class actors were everywhere - but right now we have actors from privileged backgrounds monopolising both posh and working class leading roles.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Mar 3, 2019 21:09:25 GMT
I find this make Theatre about xxx will make xxx come to the Theatre quite perplexing.
I came to the Theatre quite late, well into my forties, with little or no experience beforehand, having been bought up on Wales (Primary Bangor North Wales / Secondary Carmarthen West Wales) the opportunity to go to the Theatre was non-existent and all we got were the dry read throughs in English Lit and we had no Drama clubs or any AmDram that I knew of.
When I was at University in Nottingham music was my passion and live gigs and new music was all I was interested in, when I went to the Nottingham Playhouse last year I was surprised to see it was open when I studied there. They could have put on as many plays as they like about Farming, Coal Merchants, Lorry Drivers (the historic family businesses) as they liked and I would not be enticed and in fact would be put off as I could not think of a worst way to spend an evening. Would being introduced at an earlier age made a difference, in my case no, I had my passions, now looking back at the productions I could have seen is galling but at the time Metallica at the Hammersmith Odeon would win over “working class play about farming’ at the National even if they paid me to go.
I have been a voracious reader all my life with a natural drive to learn and know things, it was only a matter of time that plays would pique my interest, it was primarily Shakespeare, despite my hatred of reading Shakespeare from the way it was taught I knew there had to be something I was missing so when I went to gigs in London or on business trips and some Shakespeare was on I would go to see it and I was slowly drawn into what Theatre is and can be.
Making Theatre accesible through pricing is an admirable proposition but would it make a difference on who goes, if you like something you will find a way to make it part of your life, the season ticket and travel to Football matches, going to gigs, the multiple hobbies people participate in. (take a look around WH Smiths on all the hobby magazines there are, and the financial investment required to participate)
Is British Theatre failing the Working classes is a question in a similar way to is British Football letting down the Upper Classes, meaningless as it takes away the individual.
As an engineer who works in a sector which is predominantly identified as 'Working Class' there is zero interest in going to the Theatre and price/inclusion is never a reason, there is just no interest, my colleagues are people who could easily afford to regularly visit the Theatre and have predominantly lived in London all their lives with much more opportunities than I ever had.
The issue that concerns me more is how poverty and wealth inequality is becoming all pervasive, up to the 80’s 20% went to University and/or further education, now this is closer to 50%, therefore you would have expected a narrowing and as we become more educated there would be a natural appreciation of the Arts, as the Arts is the application and appreciation of knowledge for its own sake which should be the purpose of education.
I think a better question would be Is the British Education System failing the working classes, in the last week there have been many posts about the trouble obviously talented people are having utilising the skills which they have invested time and money in gathering and for which there is little or no opportunity for these to be utilised, even though I have no data on hand I would not be surprised that the ones not succeeding are perceived as 'Working Class' (no inference on the posters intended) with the other classes seeing a similar employment rate as in the past, which in a way could be seen by the perceived gentrification of actors today, I would not be surprised that there are more 'Working Class' people being trained as actors only the 'Working Class' ones are being subconsciously or purposefully filtered post training. We may look back and say we had talented 'Working Class' actors making it in the past but there were most probably less opportunities to be an actor and the truly talented/driven had a better chance to push their way through and being noticed in a much smaller pool.
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Post by joem on Mar 3, 2019 21:42:35 GMT
People are prepared to pay £10 for a packet of cigarettes and £7 for a pint. People are prepared to pay hundreds of pounds every year to have the latest Smartphones etc.
The basic assumption is that working class people are thick and we need to be led like donkeys into the theatre by carrots of ticket cheapness and simple plays reflecting issues which we should be interested in as working-class people, rather than be interested in it through intellectual curiosity. By all means have schemes to encourage young people to get into theatre but these are very blunt instruments, I've been offered £10 tickets at the NT without asking for them.
Neither does condescension get people into the theatre because intelligent people who are being condescended to normally get the condescension and resent it. So whilst tackling a subject, or an interest group or an ethnic/national/social question might get a few people to see a play unless it's good they will not return. The quality of theatre (even accounting for taste) is the only guarantee of its long-term survival. Realism and escapism are the two opposites which lure the punters, sometimes the same punters at different times.
Entertain and sometimes educate but never pontificate and give each and every individual the respect they deserve as individuals and not as a number or statistic in some professional bean-counter's clip-file.
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