"The West End's problem is not a lack of new writers but of paying audiences".
Interesting take! And actually, the more I think about it ...
Sonia reckons a play loses money if they don't sell over 75% of the house on a full run, and costs about £1m. My local provincial theatre puts on some damn fine work, is about the same size/style as the New Ambassadors (bigger stage, if anything) and they'd be delighted with that sort of house or anywhere near 1/30 of the financial figure per production!
So - I have a suggestion.
If staging in the WE is so prohibitely expensive, and if out of 16 new plays last year only 2 made money - let's do what any other business would do.
Let's close it down.
Sell the state owned buildings (they'd make a fortune, if only as multi-story carparks); cancel all the subsidies and grants to the WE; put all that cash in the bank every year and pay it to the provincial theatres as grants! If the major production companies wanted to put on new plays they could still do so - but they'd tour them, like everyone else does, so EVERYONE in the UK gets to see them.
It would cut down congestion in the City (fewer people travelling in every night) and reduce emissions, which is better for the environment. It would lower pressure on late-night transport systems (rail and coach) and, again, reduce emissions. Most famous actors don't live in the City anyway, so they'd have less far to travel (same effects).
Fewer WE visitors would mean the bars and restaurants would be less packed, so prices would fall (supply and demand kicks in). Spreading those tens of thousands of people around the UK every night would keep regional disposable income in the regions, which would be good for the UK economy.
In the medium-term, you'd have hundreds of provincial theatres no longer dependent upon grant aid - savings for the Arts Council - in fact, they'd make money - and the only cost would be losing a handful of palaces in the WE.
(Okay, we'll let the WE keep one or two of them - one for every 50,000 adult population actually living within a 4 mile radius of the theatre, roughly the spread for the provinces.)
Most of the fifty venues in the West End are commercial theatres and receive no subsidy. Andrew Lloyd Webber owns a slice of the West End as does Ray Cooney and others.
Indeed as Sonia Friedman makes clear in the first programme the money to produce West End theatre comes from investors.
A walk around the West End will make this apparent; lots of big musicals and revivals, few new plays which are a high risk- potential loss maker.
The Royal National Theatre receives public money, a pittance compared to the overall subsidy on the arts in the UK.
Theatre is supposed to be educational, right? Good. we put the DFES in charge of the theatres, not the cultural bods.
The DFES allocate schools to kids. Yeah, you can list preferences, but ultimately you don't get a choice - so some parents get the good schools and good teachers, some the bad.
We do the same with theatre. At the beginning of every year you say how many times you are going to the theatre, and you list the theatres/plays you want to see. But the DFES allocates your placement - so everyone gets an equal chance of the good plays and good cast, the bad plays and bad cast! You can appeal, but - just like school's placements - it won't do you any good!
The audience is spread fairly, so the WE STILL doesn't have a monopoly!
You're going to take the decision making process away from "the great and the good" (and the creative) in respect of the arts and give more power to civil servants?
The Government is made up of our elected representatives - so, logically, they cannot be wrong; they cannot reflect anything other than the will of the people, otherwise we'd vote them out more often.
The Government appoints the Civil Servants.
the Government and the Civil Servants are forever telling us what's good and bad for us - and as our elected peers and their appointed servants, it MUST be right.
It seems to me that theatres in the West End should just spend less frickin money. The set for "On The Third Day" must have cost a bomb and all it was was bloody projected images that frankly, looked a bit shit.
The national audience for professional theatre per annum is 21,000,000 (12,500,000 is the West End- London). Figures for year 2000.
On an paying audience basis the West End would grow under your proposal.
Ah, no - you've missed the point.
I'd allocate theatres by adult head population. So there are about 4m adults in the whole of London - City, inner and outer - so London would get a total of 75 theatres, which I reckon would only leave a handful for the West End anyway!
It is true there was a considerable under count of the population of Greater London at the last census (2001) [for various reasons) but the minimum count was 7,172,091 out of a population for England 52,041,916
btw total UK subsidy for theatre approx £120m The Royal National got £12.4m which covered only 40% of its running costs (the grant used to cover up to 60% of its costs.
The Everyman Theatre in Gloucestershire receives about £4.2m.
I am happy to state I have no off-spring... though from my experience, non-parents are a persecuted minority. I pay to educate, prosecute and lock up the little darlings.
It is perhaps not relevant but the biggest public subsidy at the moment is filched from we poor Londoners: (I'm currently paying £150pa towards the corrupt Olympic jamboree with the prospect of a lot more to come. I don't want to watch a lot of drug filled athletes, so why can't my £120 be spent on the arts or something worthwhile.)
The figure of £4.1m or £4.2m is from www.artscouncil.org. I only looked the large print, if I've wrong of course I'm sorry. I am prepared always to be corrected... Hmm... let me rephrase that... I don't regard myself as infallible... not being the descendent of a Welsh God
Oops.. The £4.1m is the estimated running costs of "The Everyman" it receives £345,692 from The Arts Council it also receives additional funding from Gloucester City and County Councils.
Originally posted by TheAdMan: We're would-be writers. Neither of us won. The National and The Everyman got all the cash!
The National is one of the few good things about this island. I have seen the most stunning theatre of my life there. It fosters new writers in the Studio, sells £10 tickets and explores all aspect of theatre. It's a gem. Nicolas Hytner is a god. The place is magic.
A client took me to see Miranda Richardson in The Changeling at The National in 1988; quite possibly one of the most memorable evenings in the theatre I've ever had (after all the ones where I was on stage, of course)!
Not comparable, of course - but has anyone seen Lion King at The Lyceum? A lovely little theatre, and an absolute musical and visual spectacle, for adults and children alike!
Originally posted by TheAdMan: A client took me to see Miranda Richardson in The Changeling at The National in 1988; quite possibly one of the most memorable evenings in the theatre I've ever had (after all the ones where I was on stage, of course)!
Not comparable, of course - but has anyone seen Lion King at The Lyceum? A lovely little theatre, and an absolute musical and visual spectacle, for adults and children alike!
I did love the Lion King - especially the opening procession. The puppets are great and the story has been perfectly adapted for a musical.
