British Theatre Guide Blog

So details of the Comprehensive Spending Review have now been revealed and the Arts have fared better than expected.  We were warned that the best we could expect was an increase in line with inflation but standstill funding and even a 5% cut were suggested as possibilities.  Indeed, the general feeling was that standstill was the best we could expect and government sources were mentioning a possible 5% cut in order to make standstill funding (which is, of course, essentially a cut in real terms) seem attractive.

But no, we have an increase in line with inflation  over the next three years in the funding to the DCMS and now the culture secretary has announced that the grant in aid which the Arts Council will receive will increase, over the three year period of the CSP’s life, of 1.1% above inflation.  That’s £28m over three years.

But let’s not get too celebratory too soon.  We still have the Cultural Olympiad to pay for, which means that ACE will not have all that money to spend as they wish.  Quite properly, the department has said that free entrance to museums and galleries will be protected, so spending there will increase by at least the rate of inflation, so the amount available for theatre will not be as much as first impressions may suggest.

It is still going to be a very tough period for theatre companies.  We have yet to learn how ACE will allocate its money: will RFOs (Regularly Funded Organisations) get a full inflationary increase?  If they do, then the amount available for the Grants for the Arts scheme, which is essentially project funding, will be reduced.

It’s a tough call.  Is it more important to fund ACE’s big clients or emerging companies which are asking for a lot less money?  I’m a trustee of a RFO, so obviously I want its grant to continue at as high a level as possible, but I’m also the artistic director of a company that depends on Grants for the Arts to be able to deliver our projects.  How can I choose between them?  How can ACE choose between them?  If both deliver the goods, how can one be called more important than the other?

One thing is sure: there are going to be some theatre organisations which are unhappy, but probably fewer than we feared would be the case.

Because (s)he can’t do right for doing wrong.

This week I’ve had complaints about reviews on the BTG from two people.  One complained that the reviewer had done such a detailed study of the play that he (the complainant) now didn’t need to see the play and so was annoyed.  Another (dealing with another play and another reviewer) complained that the critic was too critical and that such critics are killing the development of new writing by making adverse comments.

As a responsible editor - of course! - I went back to the reviews in question and looked at them again.  The first was an enthusiastic review of a very complex piece and it needed the exposition to make the review comprehensible and, as for the second, I contacted the reviewer who simply said that it was a bad piece of writing and a poor performance and that was the general consensus on press night.

Meanwhile I had an email about one of my own reviews, thanking me for being so positive.  All I’d done was say what my reactions to the play and the performances were, which is all I - and every other critic - ever do.  Still, I am human (although there are some whose work I have reviewed who don’t think so) and it is nice to be thanked for doing your job.

But the whole business shows the ambivalent relationship between critics, their subjects and even their readers. Some time ago I had an email from a reader who was annoyed that one of our reviewers had given a very positive review to a play which he (the reader) hated.  This particular character even suggested that there is a deliberate conspiracy in the theatre world to pretend that the playwright in question (who is one of our leading writers, but I shall go no further than that in revealing his identity) is good when he is, the reader suggested, without any talent at all.

All a critic can do is detail his/her own reaction to a play or performance.  In the case of those critics who, for example, write for the major nationals and for websites such as the BTG, their reactions are informed by a long history of theatre-going and/or professional involvement.  These critics probably see more productions in a month than the average reader sees in a year, so inevitably their reactions are going to be affected by that accumulation of experience.

Many - in fact, seventeen - BTG reviewers are actively involved professionally in theatre as actors, directors or writers.  Some have been so for a very long time - in my own case, for more than fifty years.  In some cases our backgrounds are in classical and in others in new and experimental theatre.

Does this sort of background make for better or worse critics?  I would suggest better.  The wider the experience against which to assess a piece, the better the assessment can be.   But it does mean that our reactions are likely to differ from those of audience members who have less experience.  However in the majority of cases the critics tend to agree in their general assessment of a piece, which does say something - but nothing whatsoever to do with any conspiracy to build up or damn a writer/director/actor!