Examination of Witnesses (Questions 43-58)
THE NATIONAL
YOUTH MUSIC
THEATRE
14 OCTOBER 2003
Chairman: Welcome Dr Semple, we are very
pleased to see you.
Q43 Alan Keen: I have had a little
bit to do with the National Youth Music Theatre, I think I hosted
an event when you were first Chair. I just got back in the early
hours of this morning from a week's holiday so I do not really
know the worst that has happened, could you start off by telling
us?
Dr Semple: Thank you for the opportunity.
I apologise for not having a cast with me, we are a late witness
and I apologise for the limited information you have in front
of you. To answer your question directly, to say first of all
I am a volunteer as the Chairman of the organisation and my background
has been working with young people, I was head of the arts in
a large comprehensive school not very far away from here. Why
I am involved and why the board is involved and why we do this
is because we believe that opportunities for young people in musical
theatre is what they indeed enjoy doing and it helps the whole
of the industry. What has happened to NYMT? Since 1976 when we
were formed we began in a small way and we have developed over
the last 25 years. We received funding from Andrew Lloyd Webber
of about £200,000 a year for six years. In 1999 the funding
ceased and at that time we had a turnover of about £750,000.
We had grown, we were working predominantly in large scale productions
but we had also undertaken an audit of our work and we had begun
a programme of regional activity. The education audit that we
undertook told us several things, one was that there was a market
of young people out there who indeed wanted to experience musical
theatre and these were young people that extended the base from
which NYMT first grew, namely a boys public school in the south
of England. We began a programme of talent spotting, of engaging
with all young people, all sets of society all over the United
Kingdom in getting involved. If I tell you that in 2001 we provided
7,000 room nights in forty plus towns across the United Kingdom
that will give you the scale of what we have done. The issue for
us is at some point with funding being increasingly difficult
to attract a decision had to be made. Unfortunately we took that
decision on 22 September. We took the decision because when we
looked to the future—our financial year ends December—we
found that our deficit would be in the region of £70,000.
With all honesty we could no longer sit there, because each summer
we do sit as a board and bite our finger nails and go, "I
know we will make it through, we will get there". This year
we thought it would be more difficult to raise funds, so we have
paused, we have undertaken the CVA, a Company Voluntary Arrangement,
we have written to all our creditors and with that we are going
to spend I would say until Christmas in our offices at the Palace
Theatre—that Andrew Lloyd Webber has given us free, we used
to pay rent but we now have it for free for the next three months—trying
to stabilise ourselves. What we have done is contact Alumni. As
Alumni can and do they called and pledged £40,000 and another
US $5,000, which we have, so there is a will to keep us going.
I cannot talk about our future because that would jeopardise the
CVA route but I can say that we are determined (and the company
has not closed) to ensure this activity continues in some way
or another for the thousands of young people out in the United
Kingdom.
Q44 Alan Keen: Can I say for other
people's benefit I have seen a number of productions—and
I had the thrill of entertaining Celeste Holmes here during the
summer, she was the first person to sing I am just a girl that
cannot say no in the first production on Broadway of Oklahoma—and
the NYMT's production of Oklahoma was magnificent and what
was even more outstanding was to go backstage at the end and realise
these were not adults who were singing and acting in it, it was
just outstanding. I know that you go round the country and you
go into areas where kids have never had the opportunity to find
out what was possible. I cannot believe that the Government did
not come up with the funding to continue that. Considering the
number of people who have put something into NYMT over the last
couple of years, it is just heartbreaking that the money could
not have been found to give you that future for the benefit of
kids. Most of us were at Paisley when Renfrewshire Youth presented
20 minutes of Our Town for the Dome and it was brilliant.
What was more outstanding was that when we had a buffet lunch
with them afterwards you could not get a word in edgeways, they
just talked all the time and it was because of the confidence
they had gained from being involved in this. You are getting funding
from one of the trade unions or has that stopped, or is it just
that you did not have enough coming in from elsewhere?
Dr Semple: If you will not hold
it against me I will just tell you about the Dome because I was
Director of the Millennium Experience and you met Alison, one
of my directors for Scotland, we produced the Our Town
story and every day, as you know, we had hundreds of children
at the Dome hearing that story. We are one of the NASUWT's flagship
projects and we apply to them each year for specific pieces of
work. We have had their grant and we have used it and I am sure
if we apply again, if we are able to, they will look at us favourably.
The Department for Education and Science is very keen to work
with us, but the regional opportunities have been for local authorities
and other grants. Youth Music has been very helpful and very encouraging
and supportive of our work and what we want to do in the future.
This is an area where we have not had the time to pause because
we are running all the time to keep these activities going, but
I think we are going to be able to do so now. I imagine the future
scenario for young people and youth music and musical theatre
might look like this certainly for NYMT but there might be others,
although there are not many organisations like us in this field.
There is the National Youth Theatre who we talk to, but I imagine
that we could develop our regional programme even more and that
would not only mean going along with local authorities and arts
councils of each region and so on but also working with theatres
who have good relations with us. Newcastle Theatre, for example,
is very keen to work with us. We would certainly—and this
might sound crude—contract our services out to theatres
for those who do not have the capacity or who are just emerging
in this area of working with young people. There are lots of regional
theatres that do have an excellent regional programme in musical
theatre. I think we could develop the regional programme, but
also what we specialise in, as you know, are what I call the large
scale, major projects where you get Alan Ayckbourn writing Orvin
for you and if you get into that as a kid it is a fantastic experience.
What young people say to me about NYMT is it is wonderful having
the regional programmes, absolutely perfect and it is on a wonderful
scale, but if we brought people in from all over the country to
do the large scale stuff with other sorts of writers, it could
be new writers, it does not have to be somebody who has made their
mark, that is an experience that very few young people have and
it is that excellence as well that we are endorsing. So attracting
sponsorship and funding for the large scale project has been the
most challenging and that is what Andrew Lloyd Weber has funded
for us in the past and that is what we need to think about in
terms of carrying on there. That is the model I see there.
Q45 Alan Keen: Do you think the Department
for Education does not understand the value that this can give
to children? We all want our kids to be able to read and write
and be good at maths, that is essential, but do you really think
the Department for Education has an understanding of what it can
give kids if they have the opportunity? I started to play the
guitar when I was 40 because I did not get a chance to before
then, I had an aversion to music because of the way I was taught
at school, I just did not want to know. Last year's music theatre-type
of productions and the training gives kids the opportunity and
lets them see that it does not have to be serious music, it is
part of the enjoyment of life. Does the Department and the DCMS
not understand the value of this? There is a vast education budget
there. Why can we not get more of it for this aspect of life?
Dr Semple: I know the DfES fairly
well and DCMS fairly well. I would say there is an interest in
knowing more. My issue is to find the right place to go to have
that conversation, that is my own personal difficulty. I do not
sense resistance, certainly not, but I used to work at the Arts
Council many years ago and it would help if those of us outside
of that structure understood the conversations that were taking
place on musical theatre for young people with the DfES and DCMS.
I know they have brought together a lot of their thinking on arts
education and I think it would be very helpful if we could progress
that to youth musical theatre. I think there is still some work
to do and I would love to be able to sit here and say I am totally
confident that both those departments have and understand the
issues. I have yet to have that detailed conversation, but I do
not think I meet resistance.
Alan Keen: Thank you.
Q46 John Thurso: Dr Semple, we are
very grateful you are here. I know you are a late witness and
I also know you are a volunteer, but please do not take these
questions as being aggressive, they are not meant to be, they
are just to find out something about what is going on. Is there
any research that anybody has done on the relationship between
kids who have theatre experience not becoming vandals or whatever
and those who do not have the theatre experience becoming vandals?
Is there any way of proving to Government that if you invest in
this you get better young people?
Dr Semple: If there is not then
I will do it! This is longitudinal work we are talking about here
and I would think the best place to look for that would be the
National Foundation for Education Research (NFER), they might
have a comment on it and they will have examples of that sort
of justification, of people engaged at a certain age in arts activity
having their lives transformed which means they have not gone
down an undesirable route. I am sure there is some work there.
Q47 John Thurso: It does seem to
me that if, when putting your case to Government, you could actually
point to a cause and effect it would help considerably. I know,
because of the announcement you have made, you cannot talk about
what may happen in the future, but can I ask a little bit about
the past. You have mentioned your turnover of £750,000 and
I also know that a certain amount of the funding comes from parents
and you have a very good funding pack that goes to the parents
of kids that are involved and so on. Can you give us some idea
of the break down of funding and broadly where your funds have
come from in the past so that we can get an idea of the sort of
scale of the problem?
Dr Semple: I will give you an
example here. I have here a report on activities in 2002, as we
are completing our audit now. We wanted to attract from external
sources, that is not parents, around about £250,000 and corporate
sponsorship makes up £100,000 of that. Then we have donations,
trusts and foundations, friends and individual donations, corporate
entertainment and musical theatre industry. We also know from
the costs of our productions that the breakdown between what parents
contribute to our funders, Youth Music, would be £150,000
and I will say Youth Music would contribute another £150,000
and the box office would contribute around about the rest. That
is broadly what it is. The thing about parents contributing is
that of course they pay a subsidised rate for the course or the
event. As I said earlier, our biggest cost is residential costs
for our young people. What we are looking at, in order to have
a viable way to go forward, is whether we should change the age
group for whom we are catering. The National Youth Theatre work
with older young people and do not have that issue to do with
chaperones and beds and all those other things. It is a phenomenal
part of our budget goes on residential costs.
Q48 John Thurso: You might like to
look for a hotel group to sponsor you.
Dr Semple: I was actually going
to say what you could do for us. I mentioned 7,000 beds and again
it is only because we are in this situation that we have had time
to pause and to say NYMT cannot go, that is the first thing. In
previous walks of life I have not been shy of saying we have got
to take a decision here, which is what we have done with NYMT.
If we had carried on we could have said we will have £70,000
of debt at the end of the year, somebody will have to come in
and we will start the new year and carry on. We had to take the
decision. I am not saying it should continue because it is NYMT
but it is actually filling a huge gap there. I would say it was
7,000 room nights in 2001. There must be a deal that we can do
with a major hotel chain and I had thought of the Youth Hostel
Association but it may be something quite different from that,
but we need help in how to go about that.
John Thurso: I had better declare my
interest, Chairman, as I am deputy chairman of a listed plc of
a hotel company.
Q49 Mr Bryant: I should declare an
interest because I am an associate of the National Youth Theatre
which means that if it folds I have to fork out £1, so it
is not a big financial interest. I wanted to ask a bit about the
relationship with the National Youth Theatre because the National
Youth Theatre has done quite a lot of musicals over the last couple
of years, it did Maggie May, Blitz and another one
which I cannot remember the name of. It seems to me there is some
overlapping here. I just wonder whether there is more work that
you could do together.
Dr Semple: Absolutely, and I have
already met the National Youth Theatre's chairman. What I want
to be able to go to him with is a proposition—when we are
out of this particular situation as we are not attractive to anyone
at the moment in terms of talking about the future—for how
we might look at our organisations and benefit from our joint
expertise. An example is office space, that is just a simple thing
and there are things we can be doing together without diluting
the brands. Those conversations have begun, but I do not want
to frighten the world out there by having them think we will be
merging or something like that. That has not been discussed but
we have given it thought.
Q50 Mr Bryant: Why would it be frightening
for the world to say you were merging?
Dr Semple: Because of the state
we are in at the moment. It might be that we will say, after we
have got through this particular period, it seems sensible that
the future looks like this in that we know National Youth Theatre
have not got such a great regional presence as we do so should
we pick that up? We know that they have wonderful premises and
we do not. It is those sorts of things. When you talk of a merge
people just hear the word and think both are going to get subsumed
within something new. I want to qualify the merger with specifics.
That is why I think outside people might be a bit frightened.
Q51 Mr Bryant: One of the historic
problems has always been the Arts Council has only wanted to look
in a very minor way at youth drama or theatre in any way at all
and you have said today that you are never quite sure who to go
to in DfES. I had understood that this area was meant to be with
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It seems that there
is no fixed point anywhere in Government to take this forward.
Many of the arguments that have been advanced in terms of why
youth musical theatre is so important are to do with the fact
that young people who maybe are not all that interested in the
academic route understand how to express themselves and can find
theatre and drama or music very enlightening and helpful, and
exposing people to the professionalism that the NYMT and NYT puts
on them is a wholly different experience from just doing a play
at school. How important do you think it is to try and get Government
to focus its aim?
Dr Semple: Very much so, and it
will only enhance the infrastructure and the sector and the form
by doing so. Perhaps they already meet and they talk but I am
not aware of the outcomes of that, other than Youth Music, who
I see as the particular programme we benefit from, where there
has been a successful relationship between the Department for
Education and Skills and the Arts Council. If that is as a result
of those two departments working together then I would say that
is excellent and there might be other things that we could do
to inform those departments of how else they might look at things.
It is difficult for me to know exactly who to go to to have the
conversation.
Mr Bryant: I suspect there is not anybody.
Q52 Mr Flook: I was interested to
hear you say that the DfES were interested in knowing more about
your plight and coming to help you. I presume I heard that right.
Dr Semple: Did you say the DfES
or Youth Music?
Q53 Mr Flook: DfES.
Dr Semple: No, Youth Music is
what I said.
Q54 Mr Flook: Sorry, I must have
misheard you. What I want to look at is how the Government is
involved in helping you through the Arts Council. On October 6
you put out a press release, but in the months running up to that
internally you must have known that things were looking a little
bit ropey. Did you approach them or were you approached by the
Arts Council? Can you just take us through that more accurately?
Dr Semple: Every summer we sit
biting our nails about the rest of the year and so in the summer,
when it is our busiest season, we know that not only are we going
to have cashflow problems but there will also be creditors mounting
up and the promises and the pledges we hope would come in. Before
the summer this year we looked at our programme and the board
took the decision that we would run it because we had sufficient
pledges to enable us to believe that we could pay what are now
our creditors. At that time we worked very closely with Youth
Music and continue to do so and they have been incredibly supportive.
What we will be putting to our creditors as part of the success
of this dreadful state that we are in is that those creditors
that took part in the August programme we hope will be able to
receive their fee because we hope that Youth Music is going to
help us meet that cost.
Q55 Mr Flook: We probably misunderstand
each other. I am not looking at whether you have done the right
thing, I was looking at how active involvement funders have tried
to help you. You have looked at it from your angle and said we
can move forward, we are going to be solvent and that is very
important as a charity, etcetera and I do not deny for a moment
that it would appear that you look as though you have done things
absolutely correctly, you knew you were going forward. Did you
put any calls in to the Arts Council and what was their response?
Did they rush round and offer to help or did they say they would
help you in November?
Dr Semple: No, they would not
say that because I would carry on calling them. Youth Music is
our point of contact, not the Arts Council. We have called and
we have good relationships with Youth Music about our situation
and they have been supportive, they have helped us through the
thinking and they have provided resources to us in terms of their
own staff expertise. There has not been an obstructive comment
or view or lack of interest in our particular situation from Youth
Music. I did not approach the DfES because they fund us for specific
projects. Youth Music was the major player for me to go to.
Q56 Mr Flook: But you are nationally
important. Did it not occur to the people that you were a point
of contact for to think outside their own silo mentality and to
say, if there is a shortage of money, where can we get the money
from, where can we get our contacts to go to the Arts Council,
to think outside the box? Did that happen?
Dr Semple: I suspect it did, but
if I am honest, we have now been to ask for emergency funding
at least on one occasion if not two and so we have had to draw
on their resources again and their goodwill to help us and they
have done so. I can only say this because I received phone calls
from people to let them know the situation we are in. They really
have helped.
Q57 Mr Flook: So Youth Music is funded
by?
Dr Semple: The fund I am talking
about that Youth Music holds has come about, as I understand it,
from collaboration with the Arts Council of England and the DfES.
I am sure DCMS is in there somewhere, but from my perspective
that is how that fund is made up.
Q58 Mr Flook: I understand that DCMS
funds the Arts Council. The reason for asking all these questions
is that somewhere along the line the Arts Council, which is in
charge of Youth Music, which is funded by the DCMS, which we scrutinise,
does not seem to have gone up. Has a response from the DCMS to
your plight been commensurate—and you may or may not be
aware of this—with its first strategic priority which is
to increase the access of children and young people to culture?
Dr Semple: Not yet.
Chairman: Dr Semple, thank you very much
indeed. We are most grateful to you. I have got to say this and
I am not saying it in anticipation of any decline in standards
when we get the Arts Council, but I believe that these are some
of the most outstanding witnesses that this Committee has heard
for a very long time. Thank you.
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