Examination of Witness (Questions 34-39)
THE THEATRES
TRUST
25 JANUARY 2005
Chairman: We are delighted to see you
here this morning and we will start once again with Chris Bryant.
Q34 Chris Bryant: Thank you, Chairman.
Good morning and welcome. I suppose the good news is that in the
1880s the average British theatre used to burn down every 18 years
and that does not happen now and we have not had a major theatre
fire for many, many years. The problem is we have still got the
theatres we had in 1880 in large measure. All of Frank Matcham's
theatres are still around. The size of people has grown but the
size of seats has not. The back-stage facilities are very poor
for most working actors and directors and there are lots of artistic
problems from people putting shows into theatres that were not
designed for modern hydraulics. So what are we going to do?
Mr Rhymes: First of all, can I
say we welcome the opportunity of being here before you and I
hope that you have got some of the answers to that sort of question
in the document we have presented. Also as someone who throughout
my working life was involved with theatre management I, too, am
very glad that theatres do not burn down in the same way these
days. You are absolutely right; there is a whole series of things
that needs to be done. We have got some ideas and I think the
easiest thing would be if our Director, who has had experience
both in terms of the Arts Council and housing the arts work, and
indeed now the best part of 10 years at the The Theatres Trust,
gives you an answer to that particular question.
Mr Longman: Mr Bryant is holding
Act Now, the report we did just 15 months ago. We have
not said a great deal about it in our submission partly because
it is probably familiar to many Members here, but also because
we commissioned the report and my Chairman was then at the Society
of London Theatre. We work very closely with the Society of London
Theatre and its Director, Richard Pulford, is coming along to
give evidence to you and he has written a rather fuller submission
to you. On Act Now specifically, which dealt with
the 40 commercially-owned theatres in the West End, we made the
point that there was a huge economic impact from those theatres
to London in general and indeed to the UK economy. In one sense
they are the last big nucleus of commercially-owned theatres left
anywhere in Britain. One of the things we have seen over the last
50 years is a gradual move away from that time 100 years ago when
theatre was such a profitable business that you could afford to
buy the best sites in Shaftesbury Avenue, and build a theatre
there. If the thing burnt down you could afford to re-do it and,
frankly, if it had not burnt down you had to re-do it anyway to
keep up with your competitors. The whole economics of theatre
ownership has changed dramatically. We refer in our evidence to
you to a report done by the Arts Council for the then Chancellor
of the Exchequer—Harold Macmillan was his name, as long
ago as that—pointing out that the economics of theatre ownership
were such that it was necessary for more of these buildings to
come into public ownership. In London's West End they have not
been deemed to be a priority for the Lottery because they are
seen as commercial because a few producers—and you can number
them on one hand—have made a lot of money from shows from
worldwide spin-offs. The fact is that the building owners themselves
do not make anything like the return that they need in order to
justify any expenditure. The response to this report has been
universally favourable from the parliamentarians and indeed from
the public. You may have seen an exhibition on at the Theatre
Museum at the moment which explains the history of these buildings.
They were doing a simple survey there of members of the public
on whether they think these buildings should be helped and that
they are worth helping. There has been a unanimously favourable
response to that. The Secretary of State commissioned a meeting
with the Minister for the Arts and in effect they have commissioned
myself on behalf of The Theatres Trust, the Society of London
Theatres and their own senior officials to go away and find a
solution. I think it might be more appropriate if you see the
DCMS and indeed the Society to see where we are. I think we can
see a way, hopefully, of meeting those urgent needs within the
West End, but part of our evidence, as you will have seen today,
is that that need exists in a particular form in the West End;
it also exists right across the rest of the UK.
Q35 Chris Bryant: Yes, it is not just
about London, is it, there are other places where there are commercial
theatres which are a very significant part of the local night-time
economy and while many people will enjoy going into the major
city centres to go to the theatre and some theatres of course
are jewels of British architecture, some of them are fairly pedestrian
buildings, in all honesty, are they not?
Mr Rhymes: I think "monstrosities"
is probably the word that you are looking for, yes.
Q36 Chris Bryant: Talking of one such,
the London Palladium—
Mr Rhymes: —Jewels or monstrosities?
I hope jewels.
Q37 Chris Bryant: I am going to be generous
and leave that to you to decide. I just wondered whether there
is room for more self help. Looking at some of these buildings
they are superb sites but they are theatres that are closed all
day despite the fact that some of them are very attractive inside.
Nobody has ever thought of using the daytime for the building
to make money in some other way. The food is nearly always almost
inedible. The drinks are expensive and the only version of orange
juice they have ever heard of is Britvic. Could there not be more
self help?
Mr Rhymes: Let me try and deal
with some of those points, and also picking up the points that
were made to David James earlier on. Yes, a lot could be done
but I think as a theatre manager I ought to explain one or two
things that go on in the theatre during the day when it looks
to the outside world that the place is shut up and nothing is
happening. I am now talking about a purely commercial theatre.
There is a fair amount of maintenance. If you have a complicated
show such as a modern musical, there is an awful lot of work that
has to be done to ensure that all the hydraulics and all the associated
effects—take something like Mary Poppins—are
dealt with in order to comply with modern legislation. In fact,
there is not as much space around the building as you might imagine
as a member of the audience. One of the great features of Matcham
was to give the impression that there was a very large space.
In places I have most experience of, for example the London Coliseum
where I was for 20 years, you go into the auditorium and you think
it is an amazing place, a vast place, and some critics of some
of our operas refer to it as "cavernous". Once you got
outside the auditorium (before the recent alterations) there was
minimal space. We have only created 40% extra public space by
taking in other areas and indeed as far as the Coliseum is concerned
taking out some of the basement that was private into public areas.
Very little of that can actually be used on a regular basis for
providing entertainment, although a lot does happen by way of
tours and talks of one kind or another. Probably there is a little
fault with regard to that not being sufficiently well-known due
to lack of marketing, picking up again a comment that has been
made. If I can just say that in the past at the English National
Opera if you had a lunchtime talk about Jonathan Miller you actually
had to be quite careful about how you advertised it otherwise
you could find yourself swamped and not have the space to put
that on. To deal with the matter of bars, please remember that
you have got to serve, talking about the Palladium, 2,000 people
in a comparatively short time but you have got to employ the staff
for the whole of the evening. I am not saying that the Britvic
is necessarily charged at the right rate. That is probably a matter
of the concession or the arrangement that the theatre owning management
has with the caterer. To a large extent, those are dealt with
by franchise operations even in subsidised theatres and part of
the revenue for the building operation will be coming from that
activity. I know from working at the National Theatre in the early
days that Laurence Olivier was extremely hot with regard to how
much we were making on the bars, a residue of being an actor manager
himself.
Chris Bryant: I understand the issue
about back stage space. When I was young in the National Youth
Theatre I think there were 140 of us appearing in Zigzagger
at the Shaw Theatre and we all had to cram into a space which
was 2'6" wide and suddenly appear on stage as if we had been
running from a great distance, somewhat difficult to carry off.
I wonder about the business of putting public money into private
investment and the difficulty here where, as I am sure you will
be aware, many of us have constituents who do not earn the £40,000
a year which is what 70% of people going to West End theatre earn.
How do you justify that?
Chairman: And that is not what the people
performing in the West End theatre mainly get.
Q38 Chris Bryant: Indeed.
Mr Longman: I think you should
probably talk to the Society of London Theatre for a full breakdown
of the earnings of those who go to the theatre. I read something
in one of the pieces of evidence which gave a different impression
to the one you have done. I had better not comment. At the risk
of back-tracking, I was going to come back to the London Palladium
as a specific instance of theatre owners helping themselves because
we document in the Act Now report at page 21 a scheme
to improve completely the backstage areas, give decent dressing
rooms and modernise the stage, which has hardly been touched since
the 1930s. They could have built something commercial there which
would have given a lot of the capital needed to do that major
investment, but there would still have been a gap between what
the commercial development would have been able to produce and
the cost of doing the work. We and the commercial owners, when
asked to address their building needs, are looking commercially
at any opportunity going. There are planning applications at this
moment involving building things above theatres, some of the income
and profit from which can help do something for the costs of the
works concerned. In terms of the ownership, Cameron Mackintosh
has just spent, as a remarkable act of personal generosity, £8
million improving the Prince of Wales Theatre. If Committee Members
wanted to see a good example of what can be done in a theatre,
do go along and see that one. The balance sheet value of that
theatre, having had £8 million spent on it, is probably no
more than it was before. The whole economics of theatre ownership
are completely topsy-turvy in that sense. There is not the return
on capital to justify the investment and there has not been anywhere
in Britain now which is why most theatres outside London are no
longer commercially owned.
Q39 Chris Bryant: Can I ask about planning?
For instance, if you are going to change the tiering in theatres
because the seats are too close together and we have grown four
inches over the last 100 years. Are there problems in terms of
how English Heritage helps or hinders or other planning authorities?
Mr Longman: I think it is perceived
to be a problem. I am not saying that if you have a Grade I listed
building there are no constraints but the Royal Opera House was
a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument as
well. They may not have things right and perfect, but if you went
in the Royal Opera House in the middle of the big Lottery funded
refurbishment the horseshoe was about the only thing left standing
with the ceiling. Backstage was razed to the ground. The bars
were all rejigged. They took on space next door. The Lyceum Theatre
was completely demolished backstage and a new bit was built on
one side. That is a Grade II star listed building. On the seating
in particular, look at the schemes which English Heritage
and Westminster City Council have just given consent for, for
the Whitehall Theatre here in London and for the Queen's Theatre
which was bombed in the war. Arguably, it is not the best example
of its type. Cameron Mackintosh has planning consent for a scheme
there which will involve taking three tiers of seating out and
replacing them with two. It would increase capacity, better knee
room and better sight lines and everything else.
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