State of the Arts

November 13th, 2009

This week The Times reported that despite the recession the UK theatre industry is doing surprisingly well. The Ambassador Theatre Group is in the process of more than doubling its London and regional playhouses and box office and audience figures for 2008-09 are expected to have risen for the fourth successive year. Musicals, although expensive to stage, can make millions and seem to be thriving in the West End, eg Mamma Mia which is still playing to 95% capacity some ten years after its opening. Not only musicals, but thought provoking plays such as Enron, which enjoyed sell out runs in Chichester before transferring to the Royal Court.

However it’s not all good news. The subsidised sector, which accounts for almost all new and cutting edge drama, is struggling to maintain private donations and corporate sponsorship and it seems likely, under current budgetary pressures, that Arts Council grants will be cut when the present agreement expires in 2011. This is bound to have a detrimental effect on the West End which relies on the National and other subsidised theatres for much of its upmarket drama.

But why is the British stage by and large doing so well in the middle of an economic downturn? One theory is that in hard times, such as war or recession, people want to gather together and hear stories. Dominic Cooke, of the Royal Court, which recently celebrated packed-out productions of the plays Enron and Jerusalem, suggests that in difficult times there is a demand for work that brings people together to question received values… “to help them to make sense of the mess we’re in”. Interesting.

Whatever the reasons, it’s good to see live theatre continuing in the West End and around the provinces and let’s hope that the Arts Council and other bodies continue to support theatre and the arts in general.

Our cultured members at Classical Partners have enjoyed some truly memorable theatre events in the past couple of years – Ian McKellan as King Lear, Never So Good at the National, and Waiting for Godot, to name but a few. Our next theatre outing is The Misanthrope, featuring Keira Knightley’s West End debut. Can’t wait for that!

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