British Theatre Guide Blog

Spamalot is the latest West End musical to cast via a reality TV show.  When Hannah Waddingham leaves the show, her replacement as the Lady of the Lake is to be found through a new reality show, West End Story - on Swedish TV!

No, that isn’t a mistake.  The producers are to find a new Lady of the Lake through a Swedish TV show.

According to the Official London Theatre Guide website, “Around 700,000 visitors from the musical theatre-loving nation of Sweden visit London every year. According to the press information, West End Story ‘not only seeks to uncover new talent but also to reflect the undeniable appeal of the West End as a global brand.’”

The news comes at the same time as ITV announced that Grease Is the Word was a ratings flop and they will not be doing anything similar in the near future, although they do not rule out returning to the format at some time.  The BBC has also announced that it is looking for another musical to provide the successor to the much more successful Any Dream Will Do search for a Joseph.

Two thoughts occur.  Clearly these shows have audience appeal, the Grease flop notwithstanding, and they also appeal to show producers because of the massive publicity they generate which will, they believe, translate into ticket sales The other thing, of course, is a re-affirmation - if it is needed! - that the big West End musicals have much more to do with tourism than with theatre.

As to whether they do theatre any good is a moot point.  My own feeling is that, in the long run in spite of the increase in ticket sales, they don’t.  I’ve rehearsed the arguments here before and others have responded with a different point of view, but I remain convinced that the appeal which enables an performer to win a TV talent show is not necessarily what is needed for someone who is to perform in a long-running musical.  There will be exceptions, of course, but there will be disasters.  No disaster has happened yet, but it’s early days…

And I still find it obnoxious that the private sense of unhappiness or even humiliation at failing an audition should be turned into mass entertainment.

The news that the Theatre Royal Haymarket is to become a producing house has already started people talking about a revival of drama in the West End.  In Theatreland, says the chat, straight plays are swamped by musicals, so perhaps this is a sign that drama is making a comeback and will take its rightful place as, if you like, the top of the West End.

Well, no.  It’s not going to happen. Leaving aside the fact that one of the three productions announced yesterday is a musical (Marguerite), the West End lives by the tourist trade and most of the tourists who flock there want to see musicals, preferably musicals they know.  Yes, they will go to see straight plays - although only if they have a star name in them - but it’s musicals which are the big draw.

And that’s hardly surprising.  The average tourist (not the theatre tourist, a totally different animal!) wants to be entertained first and foremost, and a musical - preferably with a large cast, a known plot, brilliant production values and (best of all) a star name - will, they believe, entertain them superbly.

And who is to say that they’re wrong?

When I go to London, I’m a theatre tourist.  I want to see great drama, of the sort that I can’t, generally, see at home, so I’ll see a play in the West End, or I’ll go to the National or the Globe or the Barbican.  I’m just as likely to go to a non-West End venue - the Arcola, the Riverside Studios, Southwark Playhouse, the Lyric Hammersmith are among those I’ve been to in recent years.  Because that’s what I like.  I’ll also, occasionally, see a musical too, because I like musicals.  But I go to London for the theatre: I’ll take in a few exhibitions, probably, and sample the sort of food that I can’t get at home, but I don’t do the touristy things (except for the classical buskers at Covent Garden!), because that’s not what I’m there for.

But I can well understand those who do, and who want a relaxed and undemanding night’s entertainment.  If they’re Abba fans, they’ll go to see Mamma Mia! and Queen fans will see We Will Rock You.  If they don’t have a particular preference, then they’ll see Chicago or Les Mis or Phantom or one of the other super-musicals.  And there’s probably at least twenty of them to every one of me (at least!).

So no, let’s not imagine the Haymarket’s new venture is to be the saviour of West End drama, welcome though it undoubtedly is.  I wish them the best of luck and hope the new venture proves very successful - and with Jonathan Kent at the helm, it has pretty good chance of succeeding.  But let’s not delude ourselves by believing drama will take over the West End.  It ain’t going to happen!

We’re in the process of setting up a tour of Chaz Brenchley’s play A Cold Coming.  Immediately after the show on the second night, Ray Spencer, the director of the Customs House in South Shields, approached me and said he wanted it there, so we decided that we’d try to set up a short tour. 

So far we’ve got three dates set up for November but we’d like more.  A number of the theatres I approached have, of course, already filled their autumn season, so one or two of the theatres we would have loved to play can’t take us.  One has us pencilled in in case one of the shows they have pencilled in can’t take up the date (if that’s clear???), so we’re keeping our fingers crossed there and we still have a couple more irons in the fire.

But if there is a theatre out there which would like a very literate and deeply moving 75 minute play for their studio space in November on a box office split basis, do get in touch!  Information and reviews are readily available.

Louise and I have been having a chat, albeit separated by a few hundred miles.  Louise is Louise Hill, BTG reviewer and director of To A Sunless Sea (Trinculo Theatre at the Etcetera in Camden), and I am in the North East, but we have a couple of things in common: we both direct and we are both concerned about money. 

 And we are not talking about our own money here, but the money which is (or, rather, is not) available to fund the production of new work.  We have regrettably come to the conclusion that what we do - fringe theatre essentially - is (a) important because it allows actors, writers and directors to experiment, and (b) doomed to live from hand to mouth and rely on profit-share from uncertain box office returns.

To a Sunless Sea is getting good reviews.  A Cold Coming got good reviews. Both will be financially dodgy (technical term!).

It would be OK if we didn’t have to make a living.  But then if we didn’t have to make a living because we were otherwise employed we wouldn’t be able to do the plays, not in the depth and to the standard we want - need! - to do them.

And of course Trinculo and KG are far from being the only companies living in these hand-to-mouth, scraping by conditions.  There are many of us, in London and throughout the country.  We (by which I mean fringe companies like us - I’m not arrogant enough to think we’re unique or special!) could sell out and do popular comedies, thrillers and that sort of stuff, but what would that do to British theatre?

Companies like ours are even too small (and occasional) to be members of the ITC, so there’s little in the way of support.  Perhaps we should be looking at some kind of loose organisation or ad hoc gathering to provide mutual support?

I had intended to write more about rehearsals after my last piece on A Cold Coming but all sorts of things intervened, not least there being too few hours in the day and days in the week, as well as a dose of the rotten flu that’s been going the rounds recently.  It leaves you feeling so debilitated that you feel like doing nothing.  But all that’s behind me now - I hope that is not going to be a case of speaking too soon! - and so I return to the play.

Rehearsals have been very demanding but greatly enjoyable.  We have taken every scene separately and really worked on them.  The more we look at it, the more we realise there is in the play.  I thought I had been pretty exhaustive in my preparation but the minute we give a scene legs, perceptions start to change, new insights occur and, averaging a page or less an hour, each scene develops and changes “before your very eyes”!  Speak a line or two and ten, twenty, even thirty minutes of discussion and experimentation follow.

It is very rare in the NE for actors and director to have the time to devote so much time to a piece.  Budgets simply don’t stretch that far but we have the advantage of not being tied to a budget - we don’t have one because we don’t have any money!  What has been really refreshing is the keenness of the company to spend as much time as we can squeeze out of the day to get right under the skin of the piece and their enthusiasm both for the play and the rehearsal process.

And they have been the most unselfish rehearsals I have ever been part of.  Partly, of course, it’s because we are a real ensemble - most of us have known each other for a number of years and have worked together both as part of this company and in other productions - and partly it’s because this is more than a “job” - we all believe in the play.  Five of us worked together over the Christmas period on a touring panto and we enjoyed rehearsing that (but can you ever enjoy a three venue a day tour?) but it was just technique.  With ACC we are all having to stretch our skills and dig deeply into ourselves: technique alone is not enough, not by a long way.  And everyone is being so supportive of each other that it really is a joy to work!

We have now started to put the play back together again, having deconstructed every scene - indeed, every speech and every movement - and it is proving a really exhilirating experience.  We’ve got another two weeks to go and we’re going to enjoy every minute!

Robert Lepage has been working with North East-based Theatre Sans Frontieres (sorry: no way of easily inserting accents!) on a piece called Lipsynch, which was performed at Northern Stage this week.  This is a work-in-progress so there was no press night and no reviews (although the regional morning paper, The Journal, did run one), so there is no review on the BTG.  However it would be wrong of us to let the occasion pass without some comment: hence this blog entry.

Lipsynch is, at the moment, almost five and a half hours long (including two intervals) but will eventually run for nine hours.  In its present incarnation it is a series of seven interlocking stories, each based around one of the characters in the main story.  An international cast of nine play a whole host of characters and much use is made of Lepage’s trademark multimedia and a set which is brilliantly constructed to change - before your very eyes - from an aircraft to a house to a tube train to a film studio to a restaurant and so on.

The changes are done in full light in front of the audience and much of the multimedia is operated from onstage - and very visible - consoles.  Video cameras are very much in evidence.  At times, indeed, we see characters metamorphose into others in front of us. In other words, this is alienation in a very Brechtian manner, setting up the kind of tension between the naturalistic playing and the theatrical artifice which Brecht intended us to feel.  Throw in the fact that the structure of the piece, both as it stands and as one assumes it will develop, is similar to a novel, and you have a fascinating hybrid which I found held my attention throughout and it certainly did not feel as though I’d been sitting in a theatre for that amount of time - although I have to say that, had it been in the old Northern Stage auditorium, with its original and not-terribly-comfortable seats, I am pretty sure I would have been hoping for it to finish long before it did!

There is more emphasis on text or, as Lepage expressed it in his Foreword in the programme, voice.  Four languages are used (English, French, German and Spanish), sometimes with surtitles, sometimes without.

Some people did leave at the first interval.  A good half of the row where I was sitting did not return.  They may, of course, have moved to seats closer to the stage but I don’t think so.  I suppose that it’s inevitable that something as different as this will not appeal to everyone and that was confirmed by what I heard (evesdropped on!) at both intervals.  There was a lot of “I’m not sure what’s happening but I’m enjoying (or not) it”.

It will be interesting to see the final piece but I’m given to understand that it won’t be performed in Newcastle.  Someone else will have to let us know what it’s like!