House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence

Memorandum submitted by the Independent Theatre Council

INDEPENDENT THEATRE COUNCIL—INTRODUCTION

ITC is the Management Association and industry lead body for over 600 performing arts organisations and practitioners. Members work in the fields of drama, dance, mime and physical theatre, opera and music theatre, puppetry and circus in both traditional (eg theatres and arts centres) and non-traditional performance spaces (eg schools, hospitals, prisons, warehouses, outdoors, community centres, boats etc).

ITC members:

— Receive £33 million per year in (UK) Arts Councils Revenue funding.

— Receive around £3 million per year in ACE grants for the arts.

— Have a joint annual turnover in excess of £75 million.

— Reach audiences of around 8 million per year.

— Employ/engage over 8,000 creative personnel per year.

— Employ around 2,500 administrative and management staff per year.

— 30% work with children and young people.

— 80% are touring companies.

— 75% commission new writing or create new work.

OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Theatre is primarily about people not buildings

— Writers, directors, designers and actors make theatre. Public funding should be used to support these creative individuals in developing their work.

— Theatre must reflect and work for the society it is part of, therefore public subsidy must be used to develop schemes to attract and support people from the whole, diverse community into viable careers within theatre.

— Theatre must broaden its audience in order to survive and public subsidy should be used to take theatre into communities and learn from communities. It must not be accepted as a purely white, middle-class art form anymore. Live theatre can transform people's lives—it must be made accessible to the many not the few.

— High quality work for young people, relevant and challenging to their lives must be an absolute priority for public subsidy.

— Putting people first in thinking about how public subsidy should be used in theatre will ensure greater value for money and better development of the art form. Buildings do not create or inspire great art, they do not develop people or enrich their lives—they just cost a huge amount of money and hamper the art form. Already most of the emphasis on theatre funding has centred on supporting buildings—it's time to change direction to ensure a vibrant future for live performing arts.

Build on the success of the ACE theatre review

— The theatre review stabilised the regional rep theatres and put some welcome new investment into the independent sector. This created a mood of optimism and buoyancy, which has enabled the sector to be more innovative, risk-taking and challenging. The quality of and reach of the work has improved particularly in young peoples theatre, rural touring and social inclusion work.

— The momentum must be maintained and more emphasis placed on funding to encourage and support new and emerging artists. It is still extremely difficult for new practitioners and companies to get a foot on the funding ladder, which means that much new talent is wasted while a log jam of mediocre, revenue funded Arts Council clients hang onto their funding. The question many ITC members ask us is "How good do you have to be before you can get Arts Council funding and how bad do you have to be before they will cut you?" The sad answer to the former is "blindingly brilliant and you still won't get funded" and to the latter "ill-managed, criminal, haven't produced a good piece of work for five years—apply for stabilisation, have a consultant for six months!"

— The majority of ITC members are touring companies so their public funding goes directly into production costs, employing performers, commissioning writers and other creative professionals, outreach and community work. They tend to achieve a lot with a little and the benefits of their work are seen directly on stage by a very diverse audience some of whom have never experienced live theatre before. Over the past three years the independent theatre sector has been flourishing. 80 of our members received new revenue funding or significant funding uplifts from the ACE theatre review and ITC is currently in the process of conducting (with Equity) research into the impact of this new money on the sector (results will be available in March). At this stage we can provide a few examples:

Action Transport

A young peoples theatre company based in Cheshire received £75K ACE funding in 2002-03, put on three productions, provided 99 actor/weeks of work. In 2004-05 their ACE funding had increased to £131K (it enabled them to lever in Community Fund support—their turnover in this year was over £300K) they created six productions (each production reaches over 5,000 young people), providing 149 actor/weeks, started working internationally and employed an associate writer to work with the company developing new work in particular working with local young writers who received the opportunity to see their work from "page to stage" with professional performers. Most importantly theatre review money enabled the company to improve the quality of their work and reach a far greater audience of young people.

Eastern Angles

A rural touring company based in Ipswich taking high quality theatre to community audiences who seldom see professional theatre. ACE theatre review increased their funding by 50% enabling them to mount two extra productions per year, doubled the number of actor weeks and enhanced the quality of the work.

Oily Cart

A London-based company who produce work for very young children and young people with profound multiple learning disabilities. Theatre review money has enabled them to learn more about the needs of their audience, target the work so that it has maximum impact (ie working with audiences of two young people at a time in hydro therapy pools).

— None of these companies could create the work they do without public subsidy. They have direct impact on their communities and are good value for money and produce high quality work—but they cannot rely on earned income to fully support their work.

Young Peoples Theatre is "brilliant" because

— It has a direct value and impact because it often travels to where children and young people are—their schools, youth clubs and communities.

— It stimulates their imaginations and can assist their learning and development.

— Much of the work is at the cutting-edge of British theatre because it is imaginative, innovative, highly skilled (It has to be, young audiences don't take prisoners!) and directly relevant to the needs and concerns of its audience.

— It also provides entertainment and experiences that the family can enjoy together. The work of leading writers such as Phillip Pullman and David Almond is produced by children's theatre companies and enjoyed by children and adults alike.

The relationship between subsidised and commercial theatre

— Excellent new work tends to be born and thrive in the independent sector. Public subsidy is vital to the commissioning of new writers, experimentation and engagement with communities to inform the work.

— The majority of this work does not need to be presented in London's West End to reach its audiences or to achieve success. Where this work does transfer to the West End it is seldom the originating artists or company that benefits from the profile or profits. Though there is a relationship between the two sectors there is currently no level-playing field, which leads to exploitation by the commercial producers and lack of room for the work to develop.

— There is much complaint by the commercial sector of being unable to compete with subsidised theatre. This is not an argument for subsidising the commercial sector but for being clearer on the uses of public money in the subsidised sector. Eg It is probably not appropriate for the National Theatre to be producing musicals and competing with London's West End.

— In the smaller scale there are serious concerns about small commercial companies undercutting the subsidised companies and taking low-quality work into schools and damaging the reputation of young peoples theatre.

The performance of the Arts Council

— The Arts Council has a clear set of ambitions and priorities for the arts, which ITC whole-heartedly supports (cultural diversity, artists, young people, growth in resources for the arts)—hard to argue with these in fact.

— The problem for the wider theatre sector is that the Arts Council has a portfolio of funded organisations and a relatively small pot of money for grants for the arts. It is hard to implement change strategy when all the funds are tied up and there is little room for manoeuvre. As we have said it is sometimes perceived that ACE is not sufficiently pro-active in losing low-performing clients and not quick enough at recognising and rewarding success in new practitioners.

— The "light touch" of the Arts Council is rightly appreciated by clients empowering and enabling companies to explore and experiment. We would not be looking for greater levels of monitoring and regulation but more bravery in decision-making by ACE.

— If the Arts Council has the right, high-quality staff and advisory panels why does it need to use so many expensive consultants? This practice lowers their credibility and raises unhelpful questions of wasting public money. The Arts Council does fund some excellent work well and offers appropriate and effective support—that is what it does best. The sector is less convinced by its self-styled "arts development agency" role.

Annex

WHAT ITC DOES

ITC provides:

— Management and legal advice (over 1,800 advice calls per year).

— Short course training (60 per year to around 550 participants).

— In-house courses (to around 1,200 participants).

— Advocacy and representation.

— Union agreed standard terms and conditions (around 120 members are full-approved managers).

— Networking events (around 350 participants per year).

— Information and website.

— Publications and help sheets.

— Criminal Records Bureau disclosure service.