Examination of Witnesses (Questions 311-319)
BIRMINGHAM REP
THEATRE, BIRMINGHAM
CITY COUNCIL,
MANCHESTER ROYAL
EXCHANGE THEATRE
22 FEBRUARY 2005
Chairman: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. First of all, can I thank the Birmingham Repertory
Theatre for their hospitality here today. We very much appreciate
it. From time to time we think it valuable to hold formal evidence
sessions outside the House of Commons and it is very good of you
to allow us to be here today. I would like to welcome you. This
is part of the major inquiry we are conducting into theatre, and
we are anxious to ensure that all aspects of theatre nationally,
regionally and commercial subsidised local authority, are covered
by this inquiry.
Q311 Alan Keen: At an earlier evidence
session those representing amateur theatre were complaining that
they felt there were still barriers—surprising nowadays
to me—between the professional theatre and the amateur theatre.
Can I have your comments on that? Do you think that exists in
your area, and, if it exists, how can you break that down and
encourage amateur theatre more and give them more access to professional
theatre?
Mr Rogers: I am happy to answer
how we view that in Birmingham. There tends to be an underlying
suspicion between the two communities, but I do not think it is
that real or that deep. The two areas that we have explored here,
over the last three years have been very successful. One is through
our education Outreach Programme. We have been offering master
classes to amateur theatre companies, not only in acting and directing
but also in the technical aspects of the work, so our chief electrician
here has been out doing master classes in lighting and lighting
design in amateur companies around the region. That has proved
incredibly successful and popular. The other aspect that we have
actively encouraged for the last two years—and this year
will be the third year—once a year we have done a large-scale
production on our main stage, which has mixed professional actors
and professional creative teams with large community amateur casts.
We have done two new plays related to Birmingham—musicals
about Birmingham that we commissioned—and this year we are
doing a new production about Don Quixote with Matthew Kelly and
George Costigan playing the two lead parts. We work in partnership
a local company called Shysters, who work with young people with
learning disabilities, and we work with Chicken Shed in London,
which similarly works in that area—and then up to sixty
or seventy local amateur performers. So there will be a complete
cast of about a hundred that will perform here for two weeks on
our main stage and then go to London. Those sort of initiatives
have helped enormously in Birmingham, certainly to break down
the barriers and preconceptions on both sides.
Q312 Alan Keen: Is that relatively new?
Mr Rogers: It is new for this
particular theatre. I would not claim it was new for the whole
country. Similar initiatives are happening up and down the country,
bringing the two communities together.
Mr Greg Hersov: In Manchester
we have very strong amateur groups, and, rather similar to Birmingham,
the way it seems to have worked with us is that there are various
things we do within the theatre to do with certain educational
programmes, and most specifically being able to mount certain
productions, where we have involved people from the community
in the production in a close way. A lot of those people have come
from the amateur groups. There is give and take in the relationship
in that way. If I was being honest with you, quite some years
ago we did have a period of time in our theatre for amateur groups,
and we could not continue with that because of all the other work
we needed to do in developing the theatre, and it slipped away.
I think it happens in these kinds of initiatives within theatre
companies which draw people in from the outer world, and there
is a proper collaboration and connection that goes on to that.
Also, in my experience, the two worlds are quite proud of themselves.
Mr Ormston: There is one other
aspect of support as well. The City Council supports a number
of venues and arts centres that make themselves available to amateur
companies, and that is in music and opera and theatre, and including
one venue we operate ourselves, the Old Rep Theatre, which is
the HQ if you like for a number of amateur companies in the city.
Q313 Alan Keen: Following this theme
from an earlier session, I was really pleased to hear from a representative
from Wales that the Welsh Assembly was encouraging formation of
arts forums in local authorities or larger areas, in order to
further the links between different organisations—and this
could be visual arts as well as theatre of course. There are venues
available potentially that other groups may not even know about.
Is this something you have thought about? We have formed a sports
forum in my own local authority to further links between sports
councils, where some had a surplus of resources and needed more
members, and that has started to work well. I had thought of doing
the arts, and I was delighted to hear that in Wales forums are
being developed.
Mr Ormston: In Birmingham there
are two or three levels to that question. One is that Birmingham
now has eleven districts where we are devolving some services,
and we are doing local arts plans with the district committees,
so local arts forums are developing. One aspect of that is that
each company, like the Rep, has responsibility for championing
the arts in one part of the city. The Rep is champion for the
arts in Northfield. Whether they can do anything at Longbridge,
I am not sure, but that is in their patch. Another aspect is that
we have a cultural forum which feeds into the Birmingham strategy
partnership, which brings together sports, libraries, heritage,
museums and the arts under one umbrella or framework. We also
work with all of our clients and all of the venues in a regular
sort of collegiate meeting, where we jointly plan together a meet
about every two months to bring companies in, together with politicians
and councillors, and to do some joint planning across the sector.
Q314 Rosemary McKenna: I would like to
ask exactly what you do with young people, particularly the schools.
Ms Weller: We do a great deal
with schools. In the last two or three years we have been trying
to build in-depth relationships rather than just one-off hits
and disappearing. We have a schools partnership where we approach
certain schools. We go as far across the region as we can and
as widely across the region to engage in a three-year partnership,
which is very intense in year one, tailing off a little bit in
year two and then in year three, because we cannot afford to do
all of the schools. We develop relationships in that with teachers
and pupils over a long period of time. They come to us and we
go to them. We have even been so far as to do some supply teaching
in some of the schools—workshops, support material, connected
to the plays and not connected to the plays. That seems to be
reaping benefits because the children seem to be taking ownership
of the theatre rather just a hit-and-miss visit. They know the
theatre and the personnel, and that seems to be working for them.
Mr Ormston: The City Council here
has a specific grant funding scheme of over a quarter of a million
pounds per annum which is specifically there to connect
Birmingham's grant-funded companies with schools in the city.
It is jointly operated by the education service and ourselves.
We plan strategically across the education sector to connect all
eleven of our major companies to schools in the city.
Mr Rogers: The Rep probably splits
into two areas. One is connected to the programming of work on
the main stage and in this space here, and the other is the work
that our education team does outside of the building. In terms
of the two spaces here, we have a particular bias towards doing
work in the main house that has curriculum links of some sort,
and we make sure that at least twice a year we are doing a show
that is of appeal to secondary school teachers and curriculum
links. That work has been recognised by the Arts Council because
we get a national touring contract from the Arts Council specifically
to tour one large-scale piece of work that is interest to schools/students.
For instance, we have done A View from the Bridge, The Crucible
and work of that sort of nature—contemporary classics that
schools are studying. It is the backbone of our programme in there.
In here, we have a space that is completely devoted to new work.
We run theatre days where pupils can come in and spend the whole
day in the building. They come in in the morning, and if it is
in here they will work with the writer or director, exploring
the ideas behind the new play that they are about to see; and
then they will see the play in the matinee in the afternoon. The
same in the main house: they come in and work in the morning with
some members of the cast and the director, and they take a scene
and re-direct it for themselves. Then they watch the play in the
afternoon. Outside the building we have an education team that
is solely dedicated to producing projects that happen out in the
community or out in schools. We have two creative partnerships
close to us, one in Birmingham and one in the Black Country, and
we work very closely with them. The projects there are endless,
to be honest, but to give you an example of two we have done recently,
we run a scheme called Transmissions, which is about encouraging
writers from the age of 13 to 25 to write plays. We have just
launched the outreach version of that, where we are working with
five schools in the city, and over six months self-selected pupils
who are interested in learning to write plays are given once-a-week
courses and instructions from directors and playwrights, and then
they gradually write their work and at the end of the nine-month
period we have a festival of all the work happening in here which
is open to the public, showing all the young people's plays. Equally,
on the main stage we did a big year-long project through the Creative
Partnerships Project in Birmingham, whereby the senior management
team of the Rep swapped places with eight teachers in Birmingham,
and we each shadowed each other. We spent some time in their school
and they spent some time in the theatre, learning what we both
did. Then, together, we put together a main-stage project where
we commissioned the writer and a director, who then worked in
twenty schools in the city and with the pupils then devised the
play, which was then produced in the main house.
Mr Ormston: An additional point
is that there is a huge demand from schools. In a city like Birmingham,
where there has been a range of initiatives over some years, the
value of this work has become increasingly recognised by schools
and teaches, and the ability of us to service the demand that
grows from schools is a real challenge for the future.
Mr Greg Hersov: We all see it
as a crucial responsibility and obligation for theatre to have
this double thing, with young people and education, which is to
have a vivid, creative and imaginative relationship as to work,
but also to have many other things to do with developing skills
for voices and creative imagination of young people. That is a
crucial part now of any theatre.
Q315 Rosemary McKenna: We understand
it is obviously in your own interests to get young people into
the theatre so that you build the audiences for the future, which
is absolutely crucial, as well as the work that goes on. Is it
easier because the council is the education authority as well
as the owner of the theatre? Does that make it easier to work
with the schools?
Mr Rogers: It certainly makes
it easier to have a local authority that is supportive of the
notion of arts activity happening with schools and in schools,
yes. As Andrew said, there are particular schemes in Birmingham
where we can apply to the local authority for pockets of funding
for particular ideas we wish to develop, which is fantastic.
Q316 Rosemary McKenna: Is it seen as
a non-elitist thing? It is really important that if you are going
out into schools it is about all the children, not just those
children, because you want to break down barriers.
Ms Weller: The other interesting
thing is that we get literally hundreds of requests for work experience
from schools, particularly schools we have built up a relationship
with, obviously, but also from schools right across the region.
We supply those opportunities as widely as we can. It is in all
departments—marketing and administration and so on, and
it is a very good source for schools from that point of view,
as well as the straight teaching of theatre.
Mr Rogers: As Andrew said, the
problem really is one of capacity because the demand is huge.
We cannot fulfil the demand of the schools in Birmingham, much
as we would like to. The real challenge for the whole funding
system is how a fantastic initiative like Creative Partnerships,
which is wonderful but is concentrated on a very small number
of schools in Birmingham and across the country, can be rolled
out as an entitlement to all pupils across the country. That is
the real challenge, and that is the funding challenge, as well
as the capacity-building challenge.
Rosemary McKenna: I think you are absolutely
right. The importance of evidence sessions like this is that you
get to put that on the record, and others read about it and hear
about it. That encourages them to become involved in that.
Q317 Michael Fabricant: Birmingham is
the second largest city in the United Kingdom, and your funding
is a reflection of this. I noticed in your submission to us that
about 45% comes from public funding and 55% from box office, marketing
and other receipts. That is great, so well done! Of your 45% of
public funding you get about £1 million from Birmingham City
Council, but £1.5 million comes from the Arts Council of
England, which is quite a substantial sum of money, and reflects
the importance of the Birmingham Rep in the second largest city
in the UK. Nevertheless, I contrast that with smaller theatres.
I wonder what your reaction is to the Independent Theatre Council.
When they gave evidence to us a few weeks ago, they criticised
the Arts Council and its policy by saying that new kids on the
block do not get much of a look-in, because the larger theatre
companies—and they did not mention you particularly, but
you are the guy sitting here today—take the bulk of the
money, and very little spare money is available for new innovative
theatre groups to come in. Moreover, they went on to criticise—again,
not identifying any particular theatre company—by saying
that maybe the Arts Council is not critical enough, and once larger
groups are getting the money, they continue to receive it even
if they are not performing. Do you think they were right in saying
that?
Mr Rogers: It has to be borne
in mind that a large proportion of the subsidy that comes to organisations
like the Rep is there because we do run very large buildings,
so we have huge overheads and a lot of staff. We are also a producing
facility, so everything, all our costumes and sets, is made in
this very building, so there are staff and workshops in the building.
Therefore a lot of our subsidy is necessary to support that. The
smaller-scale, more experimental companies do not have those overheads;
they do not have buildings, they do not make their own scenery,
or their own costumes normally. I think it is the responsibility
of the larger regional theatres—and one that the majority
of us grasp wholeheartedly—to work in partnership with those
smaller developing companies, and to make our resources available
to them as well. We are constantly co-producing in this space
in particular, work with smaller emerging companies not only from
the region but national companies, and allowing them to open their
shows with us. Therefore a small-scale touring company will quite
often work in partnership with us, and we will give them this
space free for ten days, together with all our technical staff,
in order that they can do the dress rehearsals, the technical
rehearsals, and open the show, which they will then tour around
the country. That is good for us because it means we get the premier
of their show, and it is good for them because we are passing
on some of our subsidy in terms of giving them the space and our
time free. Equally, with the main house show that we are developing
with the community, we are working with a very small company based
in Coventry called the Shysters, and I know they have worked with
the Belgrade. They will get all the resources of Birmingham Rep
to use and work with for those six months. We currently have a
show out on tour that we co-produced with a small-scale company
called Moving Hands, which is literally only three people; but
we have done that twice in the Rep and we have now promoted a
12-week national tour of it. It is important that more and more
the resources that are put into these large organisations are
not just there for us but are there for all the wider theatrical
community, and most of us recognise that and are very keen to
invite people in and say, "come and refresh our programming
and our ideas by working with you".
Q318 Michael Fabricant: It is not just
a question of touring companies; it is also a question of theatres.
Later on we will hear from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Crucible
and smaller theatres like the new Lichfield Garrick, which you
will be familiar with, the Derby Playhouse and the Belgrade Theatre
in Coventry. They have buildings and infrastructure too to maintain,
and some of those were saying, "we cannot get a look-in,
let alone for any theatre company that we might form within our
theatre building; all our money is going into the maintenance
of the theatre". Do you think that the Arts Council—and
we will ask them this when they come before our Committee next
week—should be assisting in the maintenance of such buildings
in order to promote theatre companies within those theatres, or
do you think that they should restrict themselves to the maintenance
of revenue funding of theatre companies rather than the infrastructure?
If I may make one criticism of what you say, although you talk
about the outreach, by your going out into the regions, it all
predicates the fact that people have to come into Birmingham,
into this space, in order to see those local companies. Is that
fair?
Mr Rogers: I do not think it necessarily
predicates that. We give those companies a chance to open their
work here, and they will then tour to many venues around the region
and around the country. We do not buy the exclusive rights to
that production just because we have allowed them to open it.
We would hope it would go on around the country, if not around
the world.
Ms Weller: It is not only to do
with the production, it is to do with the development of the artists
in smaller companies. We do exactly the same in Manchester as
Stuart does in Birmingham and we have small-scale touring. We
get into lots of relationships locally and nationally but particularly
locally, developing individual artists. In fact, we help them
achieve what ITC are saying it is difficult to achieve. They start
with us in a very small way, and we put our resources into this
space—the technicians. We work with them creatively over
a period of time. We help them administratively along the ladder
to the point where they can actually apply for Arts Council funding,
and not always but often achieve it. So the wheel does go round
in that way.
Q319 Michael Fabricant: You say they
can ask for Arts Council funding. Whether they get it is another
matter, in fairness. The Arts Council has not got unlimited resources.
In your experience—and you will probably answer in a monosyllabic
way by saying "yes" but I will ask it anyway—is
the Arts Council tough enough? Do they ask you the tough sort
of questions that the Independent Theatres Council believe they
are not asking?
Ms Weller: We recently had an
appraisal—about three years ago—and that was about
as tough as it gets, yes. A lot of recommendations were made and
made very firmly, some of which we disagreed with, and we had
long discussions, and some of which we could see the point. It
is a very long process, at least a year from preparing through
to the end of the recommendations. I would say it was tough; I
would say we were taken to task on areas where we were not delivering,
and we got some praise. I am sorry, it is monosyllabic, but having
just experienced it, it was a tough process.
Mr Rogers: It is also true to
say that up and down the country there are examples of theatres
where boards of management or senior teams have moved on or been
replaced because of influence from the Arts Council, because they
were not delivering the sort of things they wanted to see for
their subsidy. That doe happen.
Mr Ormston: Would you mind if
I responded to one or two of your earlier points, because you
asked a very wide-ranging question? The important point that both
theatres have made, that they have developed a role as a hub of
theatre activity in their centres, is something that we recognise.
It is something that should be more formally recognised as a role
for these very large theatres and well-funded producing houses.
It is clear to me that in Birmingham both the Rep and Midlands
Arts Centre, which is another producing theatre, have both occupied
this space of working as a hub for other organisations and individual
artists, and we need to see that more firmly in place and recognised
in the way that they are funded. In terms of the theatres' investment
in theatre buildings, there is a difference between receiving
houses and producing theatres as a funder, and we see a difference.
We do not fund the receiving houses in this city in grant format;
we will support them in other ways, should they need it. We do
not grant-fund because it is a more commercial entity and the
quasi commercial way the receiving house works actually does allow
them largely to look after themselves that way. However, many
theatres live in heritage buildings, listed buildings, and there
is a particular challenge of keeping those buildings up to the
mark, and respecting their heritage. Some discussion between the
heritage sector and the arts sector around that challenge would
be very sensible, because the application of heritage funding
to that big challenge will be needed.
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