Arts Council releases report on state of English theatre

Arts Council England (ACE)’s new theatre report, published this morning, offers a snapshot of the current state of production across the country, particularly in light of the changes that have taken place over the past 15 years. The Arts Council has also published a response that includes some interesting proposals, including changes to support touring, the creation of three regional hubs, and new leadership and workforce development programmes to increase skills and diversity, particularly at senior levels.

The report probably doesn’t tell us a great deal that we didn’t already know – such as that London dominates, accounting for 47% of all theatre performances in England in 2014; that local authority funding has fallen by 50% in the years leading up to 2014-15; that theatre audiences and workforces both lack diversity of all kinds, and that a small number of hit shows – often musicals – accounted for a large proportion of box office income, with 36 out of 1,864 accounting for 56% of box office income.

Yet even when the report appears to say the obvious, it’s useful to be reminded of the state of play. Particularly that there is a direct connection between supply and demand. Lots of people go to the theatre in London because there are lots of theatres and shows on offer, which are easily accessible in terms of transport links. Underserved parts of the country have seen a drop in attendances, sometimes dramatically, in recent years.

There are fascinating findings on unearned income, including philanthropy. Large organisations with 50 or more permanent staff generate 78% of all unearned income, while those with fewer than 10 staff generate just 1% of all unearned income. We’ve always known the arts are not a level playing field, and that the rich get richer, but these stats point to the fact that the more marketised theatre becomes, the more that benefits the bigger, better-funded organisations, which are often based in London or big cities. The report also raises interesting questions about what happens to core values as theatres in the subsidised sector look to other funding sources, and become more entrepreneurial and reliant on philanthropy. Does it change the sort of work they make, and the level of risk they are willing to countenance? It makes me wonder what it will be, in the future, that really distinguishes these theatres from the commercial sector.

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The report does not give nearly enough attention to the independent sector, and the increasing impossibility of sustaining a career as a theatre-maker beyond one’s 20s. But it does identify some key trends and knotty problems. One is the crisis in touring because of the stagnation in fees earned, and the way that venues have shifted risk away from themselves and on to companies. ACE has said it will explore a long overdue guarantee-against-loss scheme, and look at ways that that Grants for the Arts could be used to respond to demand for additional performances, particularly on the small scale.

The change to the 2012 national portfolio organisation agreements, which meant that those with national portfolio organisation (NPO) status were no longer able to apply to the already hard-pressed Grants for the Arts, has had the unintended consequence that NPOs with successful shows have been unable to remount them for touring. It seemed a sensible decision, as Grants for the Arts is ridiculously oversubscribed, but to solve the problem, ACE will now look to both the strategic touring programme and using grant-in-aid funds to respond quickly. That’s smart thinking. Grants for Arts is already buckling under pressure.

The report notes that the way theatres operate is changing, and so is what we mean by a producing theatre. In many cases, theatres are moving closer to an arts centre model of mixing produced and presented work, which renders the old idea of an artistic director with a singular artistic vision obsolete, and requires instead ADs skilled in the art of curation. In many of the most interesting venues – and that is often the ones that are daily questioning their civic and community role, such as Derby theatre – that is already happening. But there are venues where the repertoire still feels as if its stuck in the 20th century.

Clearly, ACE sees this shift towards a different producing model as the future, and says that, where appropriate, it will encourage building-based companies “to consider how they might best serve their communities and the wider theatre ecology and support them to evolve their producing role into one that has more of a focus on commissioning and talent development allied to a wider range of presented work”.

There is a danger in this, that it would simply create another layer of gatekeepers, but if it were done with care it could bring change to a situation where too many buildings still operate like silos, foregrounding their own survival and health over everybody else’s interests. Instead, these venues could and should operate as platforms, creating capacity for others with good ideas, looking for the points where interests can align that serve the community and ecology best, and acting as facilitators.

Which brings us to probably ACE’s most radical proposal: the creation of three arts hubs outside of London. The idea has been in the wind for some years, but will be implemented when the current round of NPO funding is settled in February. ACE will be looking to invest in three hubs, bid for by a mixture of collaborating partners of different scales, that could be buildings but are as likely to be companies, festivals or arts centres, to “test a place-based approach to supporting artistic risk-taking and developing and strengthening talent and audiences as the basis of building vibrant local theatre ecologies … across a defined geographical area”.

The danger of the hub approach is that, once again, the bigger organisations hold the power and the money. But from what Neil Darlison, director of theatre at ACE tells me, there is a strong understanding that this can’t be allowed to happen, and bidders will have to demonstrate that they are genuinely willing to work collaboratively and to the benefit of the greater good. “It will require a mindset of altruism,” he says, “and require organisations to stop thinking competitively and start thinking differently.” He points out that a bid might not be led by the biggest and best funded partner but by much smaller companies, with the bricks-and-mortar building as just one partner on an equal footing with all the other collaborators. Of course, if a big building in a particular area declines to be involved, that would also speak volumes about how it views itself and its place in the local and wider theatre ecology.

I’ve long thought the hub idea was worth exploring, to see if it really can deliver more opportunities for independent artists, and Darlison says that there will be a stringent evaluation of the way the three hubs operate and develop. Watch this space.