Examination of Witnesses (Questions 103-119)
NATIONAL THEATRE
1 FEBRUARY 2005
Q103 Chairman: Gentlemen, welcome. We
are delighted to see you. Indeed, I would be delighted to see
Mr Hytner even if his father had not been an active member of
my constituency labour party.
Mr Hytner: I am delighted to be
here.
Q104 Chairman: As I say, we are delighted
to see you. You both have a remarkable story of success to tell,
with amazing achievements, if I may say so—and I think probably
you will permit me to say so.
Mr Hytner: Thank you very much.
Chairman: Michael Fabricant will start.
Q105 Michael Fabricant: After that charming
introduction, I think I am going to play Mr Not-so-nice-guy by
simply asking you why you should get public money.
Mr Hytner: We could start simply,
as it were, on the cultural high ground or philosophical high
ground and say that it has never been possible to present the
performing arts, as opposed simply to commercial entertainment,
without the intervention of the monarch, the state or those plutocrats
who are so central to the running of the state that it is arguable
that they are the state itself. It simply cannot be done, if it
is to be available to as many people as possible, without philanthropic
intervention. As you know, the performing arts are subsidised
here to a much lesser extent than they are in the rest of Europe.
It is arguable that if you look at the great classic period of
the great European state theatre, you can see in little the relationship
between subsidy and box office that has obtained ever since. The
great French classical theatre started at Versailles and it is
still the court in France that is almost entirely responsible
financially for the theatre and the rest of the performing arts.
The great classical German theatre started with Goethe and Schiller
at Weimar, and it is still the individual city states that are
responsible largely for the subsidy of the German theatre. Our
great classical theatre was always a mixed economy: part commercial,
part subsidised. The Lord Chamberlain's men, Shakespeare's company,
later The King's Men, needed primarily to appeal to the public,
needed to sell tickets, but they could not have survived without
first the Lord Chamberlain's and then the King's patronage. That,
essentially, is still how we operate. At the National we are subsidised
something less than 40%; the rest we earn ourselves. We have,
as you know, recently been quite aggressive, quite firm with ourselves,
and redefined what we use the subsidy for. As we say in our submission,
we do not think that subsidy for the audience and subsidy for
the artist are mutually exclusive; indeed, our experience has
been that in diverting our subsidy, at least in the way we think
of it, into ticket prices, we have freed ourselves to a great
extent to take greater risks.
Q106 Michael Fabricant: In your interesting
response and the contrast you make with Europe, by saying that
funding is more mixed in the United Kingdom than the European
tradition, do you think that makes for a more vibrant theatre
than the fully subsidised or pretty well fully subsidised theatres
of France and Germany?
Mr Hytner: I think at the very
least it makes for a theatre which is still much more in touch
with the wider public. I am exaggerating but Le Tout Paris is
about 20,000 people, and always has been. I think a greater proportion
of the London public goes to the theatre than the Paris public.
Q107 Michael Fabricant: You mentioned
those plutocrats earlier on, and the plutocrat, I suppose, now
is the Arts Council. The Independent Theatres Council have said,
"Well, pretty much their budget is for a small number of
major theatres"—including, presumably, the National—"and
it freezes out other smaller theatres who might be able to put
on innovative productions if only they were given access to the
funding." Do you think that is true?
Mr Hytner: I do not think it is
true. I think there are individual smaller theatres who you probably
could argue should be given greater subsidy, but I think there
is a whole network of very vibrant small theatres in London doing
what they should be doing. The National is generously, heavily
subsidised and, since the building went up (three theatres operating
52 weeks a year, operating permanently at full capacity), it has
been more or less accepted that to achieve that kind of critical
mass, to achieve an institution which will always survive the
vicissitudes of individual directors and the inevitable ups and
downs that any repertory theatre suffers, the kind of subsidy
that we receive is essential.
Q108 Michael Fabricant: You have talked
about ways that the National raises money and comparisons are
sometimes given with other events. I wonder, have you explored
fully the possibility of televising—therefore, making available
to the general public who cannot come to your theatre, and, at
the same time, raising revenue—productions that you put
on, at the end of a run and making them available, obviously,
for a charge?
Mr Hytner: We have explored the
possibility and we have on occasion managed to achieve a deal.
To televise effectively a theatre production is never entirely
satisfactory. There are a number of ways of doing it but to televise
it effectively requires a partnership with a film or television
company who can see in what we are doing commercial possibilities.
And it is an expensive business. The best examples, I feel, have
always been re-emergent to a degree: taken into a studio and made
into proper television. Simply turning cameras on live theatre
has always been unsatisfactory, and we continue to investigate
ways of making it more satisfactory.
Q109 Chairman: Could I follow up Michael's
question on that. Do the same problems to which you have referred
with regard to televising productions apply to DVDs? I know you
do CDs of musicals, but is the expense such that it is difficult
for you to do DVDs of some of your productions?
Mr Hytner: It would be way beyond
our means. We would not be able to do it within our budget. Somebody
has to be convinced that by doing it properly there is money to
be made.
Q110 Michael Fabricant: My final question—a
little bit oblique, but no harm in asking it—is this: the
West End commercial theatre has requested £250 million recently,
as you know, of public money to refurbish their theatres and make
them more acceptable in the 21st century—even to have a
little bit of air conditioning. What do you think of that?
Mr Hytner: If there were a way
of ensuring that the commercial theatres were accountable to those
who provided the £250 million, I think it is a sensible request.
Q111 Alan Keen: Good morning. How do
you balance the need to be sustainable within the subsidy and
the money raised and providing the type of productions that you
get the subsidies in order to provide which maybe do not bring
in as many people? What criteria do you have for that?
Mr Hytner: We are quite well set
up in our three auditoria to be able to do that because we can—and
I think must—put the riskiest shows (the ones about which
we are least confident as far as attracting people to buy tickets
are concerned) into our 300-seat auditorium. We produce six or
seven almost exclusively new, and, if not new, so forgotten as
to seem new, plays—or now we are excited about producing
the kind of theatre which does not even start with words on a
page—in our small auditorium, where the risks are less extreme.
We have found, though, over the last couple of years, that conventional
wisdom about the kind of show "you can be sure of" was
past its sell-by date. The subsidised theatre had convinced itself
that every now and then—and the every now and the started
to become quite lot more every now and then—it was necessary
to produce blatantly commercial shows, old Broadway musicals,
shows that 25 years ago would have been done in the West End.
We convinced ourselves it was necessary to do those because those
shows are the shows about which we could be confident in box office
terms. Every now and then I do think the subsidised theatre should
have a look at the great commercial shows of the past and see
whether there is something new to be rediscovered in them, but
I do not believe we should be doing them because we need to do
them to look after our bottom-line. We discovered that by stating
openly that we are, as it were, returning to our more idealistic
roots, we have been very successful at the box office. Shows in
which we had almost lost confidence in box office terms have been
among some of our most successful shows over the last couple of
years. It is partly to do with the fact that we have matched them
with a ticket price which was attractive to a public which maybe
had stopped coming—I think, had stopped coming—but
it is partly because presented boldly, attractively, accessibly,
excitably, there is a much greater range and a much more challenging
range of theatre that a large public is up for seeing.
Mr Starr: If I may I add to that,
I think it is also worth saying that a great deal of the complexity
and the cost of the National Theatre is bound up in the fact that
it operates a rep system, and it is this rep system which allows
us to compose a repertoire which has a kind of interesting texture
to it but also allows us pragmatically to balance risk and caution
together. That is something which the National Theatre has almost
uniquely, and it is something which, if you can get it to work,
does actually pay great dividends in terms of being able to take
risks and not to have to play too many safe choices.
Q112 Chairman: Would you say that there
is a distinction or there is not a distinction between, on the
one hand, doing things like Lady in the Dark or Anything
Goes, which you almost certainly would not get a chance to
see if the National was not doing them, and Oklahoma, Carousel
and South Pacific, which practically any amateur operatic
society is doing?
Mr Hytner: There is plainly a
distinction between the kind of show that does and does not get
done by amateur societies, but I do not think there is any reason
why the National should not occasionally do shows which are enormously
popular and well-known if we have something new to say about them,
if there is a way that we can do them that nobody else is up to
doing. Amateur theatre companies up and down the country are constantly
producing the works of Shakespeare. When we do Shakespeare, we
hope to do it in a way that amateur companies cannot.
Q113 Alan Keen: I am sure you have your
hands full running the National, and you do it extremely well,
but what if I were to say I would like to you to have some formal
links with other theatres in London—and I am talking from
my own point of view. In the London Borough of Hounslow, not in
my constituency but in the other half of the borough, we have
two small theatres: the Watermans Arts Centre and the Paul Robeson
Theatre. They are not fully used. It is impossible, because, as
soon as the revenue reduces, then costs have to be cut and it
is a downward spiral. Should there not be some formal links to
help to use those theatres, to help you and also to help those
theatres in outer London?
Mr Hytner: There are various links
we have, not permanently but on a developing, evolving production-by-production
basis, with theatres all over the country. We are co-producing
now with all sorts of companies. We are co-producing with the
Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester; we are involved in a co-production
with Birmingham Repertory theatre; with some of the smaller fringe
companies; we have a longstanding relationship with Complicity,
with companies like Improbable Theatre; we are going to be working
with DV8 Dance Company this year. I think it is an important part
of our work, that involves other companies in what we do. I am
not sure that I would see why we would be establishing formal
links with other buildings. The National Theatre is very much
associated with its premises on the South Bank. We tour from it,
but my interest, I think our interest, is much more in involving
companies from all sorts of different disciplines and from the
rest of the country in the life of the National Theatre building.
Q114 Alan Keen: The reason I am asking
is because you have already said it is an advantage to you to
have three production units in the one theatre. It gives flexibility.
I am not saying that you would be able to handle it, because I
said when I started that your hands must be completely full, to
produce with this skill and everything else that you do, but should
there be somebody else in London, funded by the Arts Council,
to try to link with some of the other London theatres in order
to get the best out of the whole flexibility that lies out there
for theatres that are not being used fully that maybe could be?
Is anybody looking at that sort of thing?—not you personally
but anybody else.
Mr Hytner: Not in terms of formal,
permanent links, but our work does get out there, we are not just
into the West End. We are about to send one of our shows to the
Hampstead Theatre: Antony Sher's adaptation of the Primo Levi
memoir which we simply ran out of space for. Under those circumstances,
yes, it is good to send our work out, but I am not sure what would
be served by it. It works both ways, actually, as Nick has just
reminded me. We have now a formal but very vibrant thing with
Battersea Arts Centre: work that starts at Battersea Arts Centre
finds its way into the National Theatre. And obviously I am out
the whole time seeing who is working at these smaller theatres,
because the focus is on developing companies and artists rather
than on filling buildings.
Q115 Alan Keen: Do not think that I am
asking you these questions because I think you should be going
out and doing more than you are doing. I think it is more efficient
if you look after the wonderful centre that you look after so
well. But should there not be other people thinking about the
links and trying to see ways of filling these other theatres which
do not run to their full capacity all the time?
Mr Hytner: It is an interesting
thought and it probably should be thought about. I am not sure
what we would be able to do—what could be taken from us.
Q116 Alan Keen: No, I was not asking
from the point of view of you being a representative from the
National but as a person from the theatre.
Mr Hytner: It is an interesting
thought.
Q117 Alan Keen: One of the things we
learned last week is that there is a little bit of discontent
from the amateurs saying they did not really get the help they
should get. It would not be the National that should give it,
but they were not happy that there seemed to be that strong dividing
line between the professional theatre and the amateurs, as if
no one should overstep that mark. That seems a shame to me—and
I am not, again, talking from the National point of view but from
the point of view of you as theatre people.
Mr Starr: I think it might be
worth mentioning that we had a collaboration with a tiny company,
and then unfunded company, called Shunt, who took over 17,000
square feet, I think, underneath London Bridge Station. The collaboration
took the form not of our giving them any money or technical support
or actors or anything normal that you might expect the National
Theatre to do, but of sort of mentoring them. In fact they got
help from us in administration, fund-raising and marketing. We
ended up selling it through our box office—which actually
is one of the most valuable things you can do for a small company,
needing to pay otherwise quite large ticket commissions. I think
it might also be worth mentioning now in relation to the amateurs,
the programme that the education department at the National has
run for seven years called Shell Connections.
Mr Hytner: Yes. Shell Connections
is one of the most exciting things we do. It involves our education
department commissioning 10 short plays between 45 minutes and
an hour long. They are then collected into a portfolio and ultimately
published. The plays are sent to youth theatres and school theatres
all over the country, hundreds of them. All these groups choose
one of the ten plays, all brand new plays. There are then festivals
all over the country, regional festivals, focused on a network
of regional theatres, in which all the groups get to perform their
productions of the play they have chosen. I think 12 to 15 of
the groups ultimately spend a week at the National Theatre performing
each of the plays, and some of the plays have two separate productions.
So 12 to 15 youth groups perform at the National, every year,
brand new plays. It is exciting for them. It is very exciting
for us. Our entire company loves that week when it happens. The
Cottesloe Theatre is taken over by them entirely and for a couple
of nights the Olivier Theatre, our biggest auditorium, is taken
over by youth groups for whom we have commissioned new plays.
That feels very alive, very vibrant, and it works both ways. And
these things only work when they work both ways. This is not just
about giving something to the kids; this has enlivened and inspired
major established playwrights. Patrick Marber, who is one of the
truly original and successful playwrights of the younger generation,
wrote a play for Connections last year, and it kind of got him
going again: he was a bit stuck. It was artistically extremely
valuable to him. I think that is what we are always looking for.
The performing arts only really work when the artist is fulfilled
and satisfied artistically in what he or she is doing. They do
not work when they are asked, as it were, to provide a service.
That is not what artists do. They do that but the service has
to be a function of their inspiration.
Chairman: Could I mention to the remaining
colleagues who want to ask questions, of whom there are four,
that we are on a tight timetable, even though the witnesses are
so extraordinarily interesting.
Q118 Mr Doran: I would like to look at
a couple of practical issues. One of your hallmarks at the National
has been the Travelex scheme, the subsidy for the audience, effectively.
It is fascinating to see the figures in improvement in attendances.
I think you said in the first year you had 50,000 new members
of the audience, and that was replicated in the second season.
It has clearly been a success for you. Do you think there are
any lessons for the commercial theatre, particularly the London
theatres?
Mr Hytner: I have to say, before
I start, that I would not know how to be a commercial producer.
I think it is an extraordinarily challenging and difficult job
to do and I think that an awful lot of the expectations that are
invested in commercial theatre are dodgy. I think they are required,
particularly by the press, to be all sorts of things that really
they should not need to worry about. I say that simply before
I start. The one thing I do think we have discovered is that there
is something enormously attractive to an audience about being
told, "We will be offering you work at the highest quality
for the lowest possible price" up front. I think an audience
is much more excited by that than it is by the range of cut-price/special
offers/individually tailored marketing initiatives that emerge
after a show has opened. I think there is something that a public
mistrusts in a ticket that is cheaper than it should have been
in the first place. It seems to me—it is just instinct—that
the public knows that when a ticket is being offered for half
price, something has gone wrong with the show. What maybe all
show-business, performing arts people could take from this is
that the offer is a better offer if it is made boldly, upfront,
and the audience knows the reason for it. One of the important
features about the £10 season is that it was not just a cut-price
ticket scheme; there was a creative imperative to it as well.
We had this whopping great theatre with this huge great stage
and I had become convinced that this huge great stage only worked
if a huge amount of money was spent on filling it with the full
spectacular works or if it was stripped right back and offered
as a metaphorical space, as an amphitheatre, in the way that the
Greek amphitheatres were offered: essentially, the play, the story,
actors, lights and the audience. We saved a lot of money on what
we spent on the shows, not just because we wanted to save money
but because from experience as a director of plays, not just as
a director for theatre, I knew that that theatre worked best with
nothing or with everything. I think somehow the public understood
that. They understand that when they come to that season they
are going to be getting great actors, terrific plays and their
ticket is cheap because we want them to come. We are not going
to be fussed about giving them all the bells and whistles of the
physical production. They got that.
Q119 Mr Doran: You offered them cut-price
tickets but there was a philosophy attached to it.
Mr Hytner: Yes.
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