Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360-373)

WEST YORKSHIRE PLAYHOUSE, SHEFFIELD THEATRES TRUST

22 FEBRUARY 2005

  Q360 Ms Shipley: I think Birmingham has grasped culture quite well.

  Ms Duckworth: What does not seem to happen is the link between those enormous developments—linking local authorities and DCMS. There does not seem to be a nice link there, so this must be an opportunity that will potentially be lost.

  Q361 Ms Shipley: That is very interesting. Mr Brown, given the way you described amateurs and professionals, why did you invite them?

  Mr Brown: Because it was neighbourly really, and I thought it—

  Q362 Ms Shipley: Enabled who—you or them?

  Mr Brown: It was a neighbourly thing to do! There is nothing in it for us really. The Grand Theatre in Leeds is closing for a year to have a huge refurbishment of three million pounds or something, and they are homeless. I think it will widen our audience and will be good for us.

  Q363 Ms Shipley: Why did you do it Ms Galvin?

  Ms Galvin: We are good neighbours too! It does us no harm for people to find their way into our theatres and to realise they are genuinely nice places to be.

  Q364 Ms Shipley: The reason I said that is because the West End theatres are absolutely, as far as I can see, resistant to having anything come into their theatre that might be called "community" or might take effort from them to bring in. You have both said that it will enhance your audience. The West End theatres want a large amount of public money and they do not want to have to do anything for it. In fact, they go so far as to say it is completely impossible for them to do anything at all. You say that letting amateurs in in some form gets more people in and enhances the audience.

  Ms Galvin: We operate in communities. We have a relationship with the community that we are based in. West End theatres do not have that, so from the very beginning they—

  Q365 Ms Shipley: Arguably, they should be created because the west End is one or two miles from Southwark and Lambeth—really deprived areas. There is a major chance for it to relationship-build. Actually, it is not very far from richer areas as well; there are plenty of rich people living there—if you do not want to go for the poverty angle. The idea is to reach out and it does not want to do that.

  Ms Duckworth: Just to give evidence because my previous life was in the East End of London, the West End are very happy to take the money of amateurs, and it happens all the time. There were amateur companies using the Palladium and using the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but they pay for it.

  Q366 Ms Shipley: They are very willing to take but not very willing to give.

  Ms Duckworth: So the amateurs have access.

  Ms Shipley: Only if they pay a lot. There is very little giving going on as far as I can see.

  Mr Flook: That is a bit harsh!

  Ms Shipley: Do you think?

  Q367 Mr Flook: Yes.

  Ms Galvin: We were talking about DCMS and culture, but the only thing I would like to add to what has been said is that the reticence about taking leadership and the definition of culture seems to me to be driven in part by a fear of being labelled as elitist

  Q368 Ms Shipley: Why would that be? I agree with you that it might well be that analysis, but why would arts or dance be elitist?

  Ms Galvin: Because we still sit here and face questions based on the class breakdown of our audiences, and those are things that come to the surface whenever there is any discussion of this sort about the arts.

  Q369 Ms Shipley: Perhaps that is something to be addressed. The Young Vic has done a very clever thing in offering free tickets to Southwark and Lambeth residents. My feeling is that there would be some people that came in, and if there is a way of doing that—that the West End offered free tickets off-peak and at all sorts of times, to targeted areas—I think there is room there for direct action in broadening the audience base.

  Mr Pennington: I do not think anybody in theatre either in or outside London would disagree with that principle. I am sure that a large part of your working day is spent trying to work out how to do that provision and how to do £5 nights and all those other things. The National Theatre can do a ten-pound—

  Q370 Ms Shipley: No, that it was free is the important point.

  Mr Pennington: Sure, but that is also a budgeting and funding consideration, as to how you can afford to do it on the scale you wish to do it.

  Q371 Ms Shipley: My experience of going to the West End, with the exception of the sell-outs like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is that there is a proportion of empty seats every night. It is not terribly hard to work out which nights there will be—let us just say 2% of tickets that are available, and give those away in the community. Is that an impossibility?

  Ms Galvin: When I first started working at Sheffield Theatres we had what was called a "pay what you can" night, and people did come and pay what they could. I asked our box office to calculate what the average amount paid was, and it was 34 pence. I also asked for a breakdown of where these people came from, and it was from the Hallam constituency!

  Q372 Ms Shipley: Exactly. Is it possible to give away free tickets in targeted poorer areas?

  Ms Galvin: If it is targeted, but as I come from a marketing background, I would say that putting some face value on the ticket is more valuable to the individual using the ticket and to the theatre than to give things away.

  Q373 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. I feel very nostalgic about Leeds and the kind of theatrical upbringing I had. When I was brought up we had the Grand Theatre, which was too posh for anybody to be able to afford to go to, Harry Henson's Court Players and the Theatre Royal, Moss's Empire and the City of Varieties which no respectable person ever set foot in!

  Mr Brown: The same today!

  Chairman: It is very different today and very exciting. Thank you very much indeed.





 
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