British Theatre Guide Blog

A guid new year tae ane and a’ and mony may ye see.

When you get to my age (and I shall become what used to be called an old age pensioner - now more kindly referred to as a senior citizen - in April), there is a tendency to look back rather than forward at this time of year and, of course, we’ve been doing that on the BTG with our Reviews of the Year from various parts of the UK, so I am going to try to avoid that trap and look forward.

One thing I am sure of - well, as sure as you can be of anything: perhaps one should add deo volente - is that the BTG will continue to grow. At the moment we have over 9,300 pages online and that number increases by 30 or 40 a week.  We also have around forty reviewers/correspondents, although inevitably some are more active than others. 

I have to admit that certain sections of the site have been neglected of late and so my first New Year resolution is to revive or revitalise those sections which have not been maintained as well as they should have been.

I also resolve to update this blog more often: why have it if you don’t use it?  There’s no way it can be a daily thing - there are, after all, a limited number of hours in the day - but resolution no. 2 is to make an entry once a week.

On a more personal level - although it does affect the BTG - my third resolution is to organise my time better.  I’m pretty certain I am not the only person in the world making that particular resolution!  One of the most difficult aspects of freelance life to come to terms with is dealing with the totally unstructured nature of one’s day.  When you’re working for someone else, you have set hours and a set amount of work to get through in that time, but when you’re freelancing and your own boss, it is so easy to slip into a kind of mañana attitude.  The trouble is, when mañana comes, it gets pretty hectic!

And the fourth resolution?  To try and keep the other three, which , if I succeed, will probably be a first!

Anyway, a very happy and healthy New Year to you all.

So far this year I’ve reviewed productions of Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin, I’ve written and directed a touring production of Aladdin, I’ve written two articles on panto for a BBC magazine (Who Do You Think You Are?)  and for a local paper (Newcastle Journal Culture Magazine), and talked about panto on BBC Radio Manchester.  I’ve also edited ten panto reviews from other BTG reviewers and I have no doubt that there will be more to come.

I am all panto-ed out!

Seriously, I do really enjoy panto - although I can no longer work myself up to joining in the Oh yes you wills etc - but “as a surfeit of the sweetest things / The deepest loathing to the stomach brings” so it can all get too much, although I have to say that I have not - this year - experienced  that “deepest loathing” which only comes when I see panto done really badly.  However I have to admit that I am getting close to the “surfeit”!

I don’t have any more to review myself but I will have to take a look at Aladdin on tour a couple more times, if only to keep the cast up to the mark!  No, that’s not fair: they’re actually doing it very well, to judge by all the comments that are coming back to me.

Actually there is one comment that I would love to use on posters for future tours but, alas, it isn’t possible for a family show.  One (female) member of the audience at one venue commented to our Widow Twankey and Wishee Washee, “You’s two are as funny as f**k”!

No, the interesting thing about catching one of the performances is to see how much of the script I laboured over so carefully actually survives.  That’s the great thing about panto: the script is just the starting point and it (shall we say?) develops throughout the run.  What doesn’t work is lost (PDQ actually) and what does tends to expand.

And I wonder: do they put in those comments about the awful quality of the jokes when I’m not there?

Actually one of the funniest things to happen this year was right at the end of the show when Wishee Washee laments that Aladdin gets the Princess, Widow Twankey gets Abanazar but he gets no one.  The cast, of course, all comfort him by telling him “But you’ve got all the boys and girls in your gang” but on this cocasion one of the mothers in the audience yelled at the top of her voice, “You can have me, pet!”  It was all the rest of the cast could do to keep him on the stage!

And of course that’s what makes it possible for a cast to continue enjoying doing the show, even if it’s the third performance that day and you’ve been running for three weeks.  No, I’m not talking about pulling a member of the audience but the unpredictable nature of the audience response.  They’ll always laugh at places you don’t expect (usually at my jokes, and no one ever expects that) or come up with hilarious comments.

I love panto, but thank goodness it’s only once a year!

If you haven’t read our story about changes in the British Council’s culture department, I’d read it now.  You won’t believe it!

The arts panels, with names like Visual Arts, Theatre and so on, are to be replaced by groups which bear the titles Progressive Facilitation, Market Intelligence Network, Knowledge Transfer Function and Modern Pioneer.

Yer what!?

What the hell does that mean? And I have to confess that when I first read this I did not say “hell”, so I’ll not ask to be forgiven for the strength of my language as it has been toned down more than considerably.

Have the lunatics taken over the asylum? you may ask.  But no, this is the kind of language that bureaucrats invent to make people think they actually have something to offer and boost their own egos.  “If we use impenetrable jargon,” the theory goes, “people will think we are very clever.”  It’s management-speak gone mad, so perhaps after all the lunatics have taken over.

“What do I do at the British Council?  Well, I deal with Knowledge Transfer Function.  It’s very demanding, you know.  What, you think it means us telling people things?  No, not at all.  It’s much more complex than that! Dear me, yes.  Why, there’s a whole committee of us to deal with it.  Mind you, I hope I might be able to move into Progressive Facilitation next.  Now that’s where it’s really at!”

It would be funny if it wasn’t so stupid - and frightening.  There used to be  committes which dealt with each individual art form and those committees were helped by advisory panels of experts in their fields who gave their time and expertise free of charge to enable the Council to show the best of British art of every kind to the rest of the world.  The British Council had a superb reputation both here and abroad for the work that it did in getting the word out to the world that Britain’s artists have a huge amount to offer.  It could speak with authority and was listened to.

Director of arts Venu Dhupa said the council is consulting on how to improve its impact, make better use of its networks and enhance transparency.  They’ve got a bloody brilliant way of going about it - get rid of the experts and hide behind meaningless jargon.

There’s been a lot of bad news recently: theatres closing (Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree last week) and this week withdrawal of grants from the very troubled Derby Playhouse, the National Student Drama Festival and the Northcott in Exeter and a major cut in the grant to Eastern Angles.

In terms of funding, we can probably expect more of the same in the weeks to come as Arts Council England’s regional offices decide their funding priorities for another three years.  Inevitably there will be uproar, protests and petitions.  Jobs will be lost and local people up in arms.  And what will make it harder to bear is the fact that the arts fared much better than expected in the Comprehensive Spending Review.  “If you’ve got more money, why should we be cut?” will be the cry. 

And it is a very understandable cry, but it would be a mistake to lump all the cuts and closures together  If we are honest - and that can sometimes be hard to be if you are involved - there are times when grant cuts are justifiable.  If a company or theatre is not reaching the standards expected and other unfunded groups in a region are, it surely makes sense to move the what is after all a limited amount of money to where it will do most good.  It’s hard on those who are employed in the affected organisations and also on their loyal audiences, but there are winners as well as losers.  It’s not as if the money is vanishing.

But ACE is a bureaucratic organisation and bureaucratic organisations can make mistakes, so their decisions must be carefully scrutinised to make sure they are soundly based.  And the decision making process must be totally transparent.  What are the criteria against which the affected organisations are being judged and how fairly are they being applied?  How well do the officers really know the organisation and its work?  How often have they visited? How often have they attended board meetings?  Is the decision made on the basis of a thorough direct knowledge of the theatre/company or is it founded on paper?  And if there is sufficient concern for an organisation to be in danger of losing its grant aid, have those concerns been raised with it and has it been given time to respond?  If the concerns appear for the first time in the letter detailing the proposed cut, then any organisation so affected is entitled to protest loud and long - and to be heard.

This kind of redistribution of grant aid is inevitable and probably in the long run healthy for theatre, but it must be done properly.  If it isn’t, then the guilty heads at ACE should roll - after all, they are dealing with the livelihoods of other people.  It is appropriate at Christmas time to insist on strict adherence to the dictum that what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander.