OK you're right, I should be blogging about James McAvoy in Macbeth. Or about 1984. But you know what? I might write that blog if I get time this weekend. Today there are more important fish to fry.
Lovers of theatre, we are called to arms! A new campaign launched today called My Theatre Matters! Not only is this campaign important because it's being championed by Sam West and he's awesome, not least because he once gave me a pineapple, but there are other reasons too. I'm sure you know what they are but here are a couple of my reasons in case you've forgotten.
Local theatre is in trouble. Arts cuts will hit local theatre first because the government, your local council and even the arts council think they can cut funding to smaller theatres and we won't complain. And if we do they think they can pretend it's that or cuts to hospitals, or police and that will shut us up. And maybe you'll believe them, I don't.
But in any case we need local theatres. We really really do. As I explain not particularly eloquently on my post on the site (sorry, I wrote that on my lunch break) theatre gives me so much more than the occasional night out.
As a society we need hospitals and police. But we also need libraries, universities, music, laughter, and theatre. We need life but we also need to live. Otherwise we're all just monkeys in shoes.
I passionately believe that my interest in theatre, my joy in the arts, my compulsive creativity, these things are not genetic. They are not happy chance, or magically bestowed on me by some benevolent god. They are gifts given to me by the people who produced amazing plays just around the corner from my childhood home, by my parents who took me to shows, and by any teacher who organised a school trip whether it was to see Berkoff or Blood Brothers. And I am thankful to those people every day.
And I am thankful to any organisation or person who supported those early theatre experiences, or allocated them funding, or who voted in their local elections for people who would allocate them funding.
Small theatres fuel our creativity, make our communities better places to be, and nurture the very greatest of Britain's talent. If you want to see if Britain really has Got Talent, get yourself to London fringe or your local arts centre and see actors on their way to the top.
Personally I don't think something should only exist if it makes someone money. But I suppose I should point out that as well as making life worth living, local arts are good for the economy. Not just in London but across the country. For every ten North East arts jobs, for example, an estimated further four jobs have been created. In fact, arts in the North East generated £74.3 million of economic activity in 2010/11.
Those of us who love local theatre, and I'm guessing if you're reading this then that's you, need to fight for it. Because we're a quiet and friendly lot* but we need to get noisy and stand up for our local theatre and we need to encourage others to stand up for theirs.
MANY places have cut their arts funding 100%. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. Most recently Westminster, affecting Soho Theatre and numerous brilliant youth projects. Imagine if that was where you lived. In Croydon we've had a taste of what that feels like. And to me, it feels like my home town only exists to make money from me. Croydon's endless expanse of chain shops take my cash in exchange for cheap clothes that fall apart after 2 weeks and then try to persuade me that shopping is a leisure activity. And when all the theatres have gone I might just start to believe them.
Theatre fans, the fight starts here. Get the hell over to mytheatrematters.com and sign up for their mailing list, write every letter they suggest to you and put your photo on that lovely gallery they've got going on. I won't watch the UK theatre industry crippled without putting up a fight. Will you?
*Well, not me I kick off about stuff all the time. But, you know, we theatre goers as a group.
Argh Blogger has changed the layout of this page where I post my blog and I DON'T CARE FOR IT! Changing fonts in self defence.
So this week's sad news from the Croydon Guardian is that the Warehouse theatre in Croydon is in administration. So, you may ask, why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble? Here's what I think:
Why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble?
1. Because of cuts to Arts Council funding
Remember the Arts Council having to cut everyone's funding because the government decided it cares more about the people on the Times Rich List than the UK's position as a leader in the world of arts and theatre? So it kept funding amazing big places like the NT so people wouldn't get too angry and instead cut off the life blood of smaller local projects that it thought fewer people gave a crap about. If you don't remember you should have been paying more attention.
2. Because Croydon Council decided not to fund it either
Because Croydon Council have higher priorities like their own pay rises. Also they are only really interested in helping out Fairfield halls because that's the place that makes the money (largely it seems to me by billing racist comics and sick 'mediums' who con large amounts of cash out of the bereaved by pretending they can talk to dead people because there are some people in the world that hell, if it existed, would be simply too good for. But I digress.) Also isn't Fairfield where the wives of people in Croydon Council work? And isn't one of the Councillors on the board there or something? That might be wild speculation which is allowed because this is a blog but ANYWAY the Tories in charge of Croydon, like the ones in charge of the country, only consider the arts worthwhile if they make money or win votes, preferably both. Fact.
3. Because The Warehouse Theatre is sitting in a building site
That can't be good for business. The situation as I understand it is that the Council tried to move the theatre but they elected to stay put. So they were promised a swanky new building as part of the redevelopment. The redevelopment hasn't happened (so far) because they can't sell/rent the office space because Croydon is already basically a graveyard of empty offices. So the theatre has been housed in a run-down building in a building site for years and years. It looks like that old bloke's house at the beginning of Up. Sadly, it seems they can't afford any balloons.
4. Because The Warehouse Theatre is badly run
This is based on my experience of the Warehouse which is limited. The reason my experience of the theatre is limited is because it is badly run. I go to the theatre A LOT. I live in Croydon. Take a look at how many of the 52 plays I saw last year were at The Warehouse, the closest theatre to my house. ONE. It's not for want of interest. I went to see a play there right at the start of the year. Looking for ways to see 52 plays over the year, I spotted a poster that said they were looking for Front of House volunteers. I spoke to the lovely lady at the desk, explained that I lived just up the road, had previously worked as a Front of House usher at Chichester Festival Theatre and would love to volunteer. She seemed interested and took down my details to pass on to her manager. I never heard anything. I went back and repeated this process three more times, spoke to three different people all of whom said someone would get in touch. Nothing. Why put a poster up?
Hearing nothing from the theatre is something I have got used to. I don't get any emails from them (I've booked online so must be on their list) I spend half my life on events websites and never see them mentioned. They have never requested a review from RemoteGoat (unlike most other local fringe theatres like the Brockley Jack and indeed Fairfield Halls who do so every time they have a professional play on.) I don't see posters or ads, I get nothing through my front door or through Facebook. I go to the theatre all the bloody time, I get an email about a new show somewhere in London about every 5 minutes. If the Warehouse are not marketing at me, who are they marketing to?
5. Because The Warehouse Theatre is not engaged with the local theatre scene
Maybe there just isn't the demand for a small theatre showing professional shows just up the road from Fairfield and right next to a station from which you can be in the West End in 15 minutes. OK. But there is a screaming demand for a space that the many high-quailty non-professional Croydon-based theatre groups can hire to perform. Breakfast Cat and Exit have to go out to Carshalton to perform at the Charles Cryer, while CODA continue to bankrupt themselves hiring the Ashcroft.
Why on earth couldn't The Warehouse rent out it's theatre for a week once in a while to these groups? I think their audience would have loved Macbeth. We could have done it for a few nights at the Ashcroft and a few at the Cryer. It would have sold out, we would have paid them for the space AND, importantly, it would have brought to the theatre a wealth of new local audience members who they could have marketed all their other shows, professional and non-professional, to. There is no reason a theatre can't show both quality local theatre and great professional shows. The Spring in Havant might not be perfect but it has a theatre programme The Warehouse should be green with envy at, everything from Brecht from The Bench, improv comedy from SOOP, internationally renowned companies on tour like Faulty Optic, and Proteus and more than one cracking young people's theatre group too. The Spring (or Havant Arts Centre as it used to be rather more sensibly known) and the amazing groups who perform there are the reason I am interested in theatre today.
People reading this might be muttering to yourselves that I don't understand what The Warehouse is about. I'm not the target market. It has a closed membership. Explain it to me. Explain why, for me, this little theatre in my town is not the beating heart of my theatre world. Because I should love it. I should be furious that it is closing. And I am, but I am as furious with them for failing as I am with Croydon Council and the Arts Council and the businesses who are not renting office space in Croydon and the businesses flogging the offices making them too expensive so companies like the one I work for decide we can only afford to operate in East Grinstead and relocate. I have enough rage to go around, believe me.
The only thing I love about living in Croydon* is the community of friends I have in the local theatre groups. The Warehouse could be a centre for this love and community. It would make people's lives better, it could reduce crime, improve Croydon's reputation, boost the local economy and make hundreds of people happier and prouder to live here. Sounds far fetched, but imagine Havant without The Spring. That should make The Warehouse a priority. So let's save it ...and change it! This is my wishlist for The Warehouse:
What I would do if I was God and could do whatever I wanted with The Warehouse Theatre
- Relocate it to the Croydon Clocktower
- Have a resident non-professional local theatre company who perform there 3 times a year
- Rent out the theatre by the week OR by the hour to local non-professional companies
- Offer a programme of touring theatre companies and professional shows, including popular favourites like Dick Barton and plays which are on the syllabus in local schools
- Hold live music events
- Extend the existing young people's theatre club to start from age 7, a younger group meeting separately to the older group.
- Hire Stephanie Darkes to market the theatre to the Croydon community
- Relaunch with a Croydon Playwriting competition in which plays written and submitted by local writers are performed by the resident theatre company and the winner is voted by the audiences
- Install a second hand book shop in the theatre with an extensive play section
- Get rid of the local Council and instate some people who cared about the arts and could see the benefit of the above to the local community so they would fund it
- Hire myself to run it all
Anyway that's enough ranting blog for today. If you disagree with my condemnations of The Warehouse, the Council or the Government please do comment. In my opinion the internet is all about creating a massive argument. And your views are as valid as mine, unless or course you're wrong which I'll happily point out for you. Also do you think this font is easier to read?
*Apart from the excellent transport links to London and the rent being cheaper than nicer places.
