Examination of Witnesses (Questions 439-459)
EQUITY, BECTU, THE
MUSICIANS' UNION
2 MARCH 2005
Chairman: Good morning and welcome. This
is the final evidence session of this inquiry and I am going to
ask Alan Keen to open the questions.
Q439 Alan Keen: Good morning. I have
been following a theme of questions because I was a little disturbed
that those representing amateur dramatics felt a bit shut out
of the professional theatres and had few links. I accept that
those with often reducing budgets have a struggle to run the theatres
within budget, and we do not want them to do anything other than
be pretty hard-nosed—they have to be nowadays. I am asking
the questions because we want to enthuse people, we want that
gap closed between kids at school involved in drama and in youth
groups, who then fall between that and getting involved in the
theatre, unless they go into it professionally. First of all,
is there any problem with the Trade Unions and amateurs being
involved with the professional theatre or encouraged? Do you see
any problems?
Mr McGarry: I think in the depths
of history there was a degree of tension between the professional
theatre and the amateur theatre, as it would be called. I think
that has largely disappeared and they coexist reasonably well.
I think our only concern would be if money was diverted away from
professional theatre, which is itself already under-funded, to
support the amateur theatre, which appears to thrive on its own
fairly well. On your point about bringing people into the profession
and so on, whilst the amateur route is one route of course the
major route is still through training, drama school and dance
school, and we are very anxious to see training developed and
strengthened and supported in the sector so that it can reach
out to people who hitherto have not had that opportunity of developing
an interest at school into the professional theatre. We are also
very keen to see theatre in education, whatever one might want
to call it, re-established, because it has been very largely damaged
by cuts over the last few decades and virtually disappeared, because
we think that is a very good way of using training in education
as part of the curriculum, and engendering an interest in the
form of drama itself, that young people can take into their adults
lives.
Q440 Alan Keen: I was concerned because
I know that where the budgets have been a problem in some areas—and
I can take my own area of Hounslow, where we have two theatres,
the Watermans Arts Centre and the Robeson Theatre—there
are gaps which cannot be filled because of reduced budgets, and
what I am trying to get at is other ways of using facilities that
are not being used fully at the moment. Obviously we could use
them fully if the budget were increased—we are all pushing
for that, certainly on this Committee, and you are—but that
was one of the concerns I had. Also, if you take my own Watermans
Art Centre—I live quite close to it—we used to have
free music every night of the week, but with reduced budgets and
a downward spiral of funding the music stopped, so that did not
therefore give the same encouragement to people to come into the
Arts Centre and use the bar and other facilities. Is it possible
to encourage amateur musicians to come and play? Again, what would
be the Unions' attitudes to that? What problems do you see or
have you seen in similar circumstances?
Mr Trubridge: Obviously we have
about 30,000 members in the Musicians' Union and only 4,000 of
them are actually salaried musicians—the vast majority are
freelance musicians—and some of them I suppose you could
class as semi-professional. As Ian has already said, I do not
think there is any problem in encouraging amateurs to think about
taking up a career as a musician or a career as an actor, but
we are concerned of course that the rates of pay are not driven
down too low. The Watermans is a good venue and the free music
facility was welcomed by the Union and welcomed by the communities,
I know, and I think it is a shame that it has had to go by the
bye, as I think it is part of a theatre's rounded existence that
it has a variety of different things going on at all times of
the day wherever possible. So I suppose we would not have a problem
provided that the amateurs are being paid properly and that the
level of professionalism about them is good enough.
Alan Keen: Can I ask a general question
on this? My concern, as I said, is that we have some facilities
which, because of the lack of funding, are not being used properly.
There is a problem. The drama schools are brilliant, of course
they are, and the Youth Music Theatre I am sometimes involved
with is also wonderful at encouraging kids to reach their full
potential. But what else can we do to try to fill those gaps,
which there definitely are? In some places we have more facilities
than we have people performing in them because of lack of funding,
but what can we do to make things better? Do you, for instance,
get together with theatre people to look at this sort of thing?
This is what disturbed me slightly, that I felt that because of
reducing budgets people were then having to focus on their own
problems and not looking at it overall; that is really what I
am asking.
Q441 Chairman: Before you answer, Mr
Ford Davies, I ought to have said earlier on, please any of you
feel free to answer any questions which you regard as relevant
to your own interests.
Mr Ford Davies: I am a professional
actor and like most professional actors I started in the amateur
theatre, in the Questors Theatre in Ealing, which is a very thriving
theatre and has received quite a lot of Lottery money to rebuild
its theatre. There is a good contact between certain professional
actors and the Questors Theatre, and I go in there and do workshops
and give talks and that kind of thing. I was surprised about the
Robeson Theatre, which I know. Do amateur groups not use the Robeson
Theatre, because on the whole we have a good record of theatres
being shared, of amateur groups coming into local theatres and
using them?
Q442 Alan Keen: I am aware that there
are gaps there and it seems to have a facility which is not 100%
used.
Mr Ford Davies: One of the gaps
there, for example, is filled by the Isleworth Players, which
I know about, which is professional actors who cannot pay themselves
anything; they have done shows at the Robeson Theatre on a so-called
profit-share basis, which usually results in nothing. So there
are layers of people using theatres. I am sure more can be done.
I do think Ian is right that the antipathy, if you like, between
professional and amateur theatre has broken down quite a lot in
the last 30 years, although I am sure it still has a way to go.
Q443 Alan Keen: Is there any way that
we can ensure people are getting together, on a national basis,
to encourage more linking between schools and whatever?
Mr McGarry: I think that is happening;
I do believe that is happening. But you keep saying, and I agree
with you, that the major problem is that of funding. If we have
a single message that we want to get across to this inquiry it
is the need for a sustained growth in expenditure in our theatres,
in the funding of our theatres, and we would hope that a large
part of those gaps would be filled by the employment of professional
performers because we do, after all, represent people who see
themselves as working in a profession and trying to make a living
out of it, difficult and insecure as it is, and we would like
to see the very welcome decisions which were taken some years
ago in the spending round, which injected additional funds into
our theatres, to see that continue rather than to be set back
by the most recent spending round, which will undoubtedly prevent
those attempts which are being made to take the theatre into the
communities and bring the communities into the theatres. If you
look at a lot of regional theatres they do see themselves as a
centre as well as simply a theatre; they have bookshops in them,
they have restaurants and cafes, and they bring people in, and
there are all kinds of other activities there, exhibitions and
so on. I think that should be encouraged because they are a very
considerable resource and as buildings soak up quite a lot of
money, and I am sure your Committee would want to see that money
well spent and the whole community benefiting from it.
Chairman: Chris Bryant.
Q444 Chris Bryant: Mr Ford Davies, I
have seen several of your performances in the theatre, as I am
sure have many of the others in the Committee, and you are a very
fine actor. Thank you.
Mr Ford Davies: Thank you.
Q445 Chris Bryant: In particular I liked
Racing Demon, but that is partly because I used to be a
vicar, so I could see all the problems of the church laid bare
before us! Which takes me to Sundays because we were told earlier
in our inquiry that one of the things that might change some of
the prospects of the British theatre, in particular the West End
theatre, is if we were to adopt the policy that many other countries
now have of performances on a Sunday rather than a Monday, and
we were told that the Unions were the problem.
Mr Ford Davies: We already have
Sunday performances, Sunday matinees of a number of shows in the
West End, and Equity have shown themselves open to this provided
there is proper payment for it. But the problem, as I am sure
you understand, is that if you are in the West End you are undoubtedly
doing two shows on Saturday, so if you are also performing on
Sunday that makes it difficult to see your family, children, friends,
et cetera, et cetera. There is a big audience for a Sunday matinee,
but not for a Sunday evening. I have played in America where I
have done two shows on Saturday and two on Sunday, and the Sunday
evening is usually badly attended. So I think we are really looking
at a four o'clock matinee in the West End, and we have already
set that in being, have we not?
Mr McGarry: Yes, indeed. We were
surprised to see the comments made at an earlier session, indicating
that we were somehow being obstructive in that regard. Far from
it. Both BECTU—and Willy might want to say something about
this in a moment—and ourselves took the initiative—we,
the Unions took the initiative—of putting the issue of Sunday
opening to the producers and asked them to agree terms and conditions
under which it would happen and, as far as Equity is concerned,
we are still awaiting a response from them. So we were a bit hurt
and offended by the suggestion that we were being difficult about
it.
Mr Donaghy: Equally, following
on from that, BECTU had a meeting with the Society of London Theatres
yesterday, at which we were discussing the Unions' proposal for
Sunday working. We understand that we want a progressive agenda
with the employers, but it is not just about Sunday because, as
your colleague says, Sunday is a special day, and it is a special
day for our members also, and whether that is for religious or
family reasons that has to be taken into account. So as well as
getting the satisfactory financial arrangements we also want to
ensure that there is adequate time off for families to actually
meet on the only day that they currently can. So it is about getting
the balance between the two.
Mr Trubridge: On behalf of the
Musicians' Union I would say that we have been happy to talk to
the producers about Sunday opening. We came to an arrangement
with Disney over the Lion King, we came to an arrangement
with RUG over Bombay Dreams and it has never been a problem
for us. We sit down with the Society of London Theatre every two
years and they have chosen not to open talks about formal arrangements
for Sundays; we do not know why, we would be more than happy to
put something formally in the agreement, but nevertheless when
a request is made for Sunday opening we are always happy to deal
with it. But I would just echo what my colleagues have said, that
there is a concern about family friendly working hours, proper
pay, and those are things that we want to see addressed.
Q446 Chris Bryant: On a different issue,
I guess there is a perception that many people would have, because
they see the few famous actors who make millions of dollars in
American movies, that actors and musicians are wealthy, but my
guess is that that is probably a long way from the truth and the
vast majority of actors and performers, even ones who have quite
established careers but maybe are not working every week of the
year, have a pretty rough time financially. What is your perception
of how performers are doing now compared with, say, 20 years ago,
and what level of help is there for performers in all your different
trades to make sure that they have good financial management?
Mr Landis: Can I just say that
people think that anyone who walks across a television screen
is a millionaire, and I can assure you that apart from a handful
of people who earn a lot of money it is poverty. The minima for
the West End, Repertory Theatre, subsidised Rep touring is ridiculous.
Q447 Chris Bryant: What is it?
Ms Payne: In the West End the
minimum is about £350; in subsidised theatres the minimum
is £309; in small-scale theatre it is £310.
Mr McGarry: That is in the weeks
when you are working and you also have to work away from home
quite a lot as well. Your assumption is correct that it is an
industry, if one could call it that, which is characterised by
low pay, insecurity of employment, casual employment and bad working
conditions, and one of the reasons why we were pressing for increase
in funding was to try to address that. We also wanted to have
larger cast plays, more new productions, more co-productions,
more touring, but as part of that as well we wanted to address
it because there was a time when Peter Boyden was asked to do
his report about the English Regional Producing Theatres, where
there was a real crisis and actors simply could not afford to
go and work in regional theatres. For actors to turn down work?
They could not afford it; they were often worse off at the end
of an engagement than they were at the beginning of it because
they had the cost of maintaining a home in London but working
away from home on salaries that they felt, and still feel that
they are in fact the largest group of people subsidising our theatre
in this country by accepting earnings and salaries well below
those which the average white collar worker would expect, and
they rarely get that and rarely get it for any length of time.
In terms of help for them individually, if I understood your question
correctly, we do of course try to help them and give them advice
on benefit rights, entitlements on tax and all of those kinds
of issues that they are confronted with, and we try to do that
on an individual basis as a Union. But the only long-term solution
is proper funding for the vitally important theatre in this country
and for the actors to be able to earn a decent living from that.
Q448 Chris Bryant: Is that kind of penury
that you have described the same the whole world over or is it
a peculiarly British phenomenon?
Mr McGarry: It is replicated elsewhere.
When the Screen Actors' Guild and Actors Equity in the United
States did a survey of their members they found that the average
earnings of their members from the profession was broadly the
same as ours, and that is about £5,000 a year, when we have
conducted a survey. So you will see that the professional performer
has to supplement those earnings from other kinds of employment
that they can fit in with their chosen profession. So, yes, in
some other countries there is a pattern of more permanent employment
in theatre, in Scandinavian countries and so on, and the countries
of the former Easter Bloc where people work on a 12-month contract
in an ensemble company, but that is a dying experience now; that
is disappearing and they too are now facing the prospects and
difficulties of a series of casual engagements, and quite often
long periods of resting in between.
Chairman: Derek Wyatt.
Q449 Derek Wyatt: Good morning. Do you
think that theatre would be better served if it was not anything
to do with the Arts Council?
Mr McGarry: No, I do not. I hope
I am responding on behalf of everyone else. We have had our criticisms
of the Arts Council—it is an occupational hazard, I think,
of being a body like the Arts Council, that everybody feels that
they could do their job better—but by and large we are in
favour of the arm's length principle of funding. We do not approve
of the decision that has been taken in Wales, for example, where
many of the major decisions on funding have been taken away from
the Welsh Arts Council. Of course it could be improved, and you
will have seen from our submission that we were critical of them
in the run-up to this most recent spending review because we do
not think that the Arts Council has ever properly addressed its
role as an advocate of the arts. It has its two main functions,
distributing monies but also being an advocate for arts' policy,
and I do not think it has been as effective as it should have
been in that area. We thought there should have been a stronger
and more public case made for increased funding in theatre in
advance of this funding round and we said that. Nonetheless we
do think that the Arts Council is the best way for Government
to fund monies through to the actual practitioners on the ground.
Q450 Derek Wyatt: Those of us who do
not have Welsh constituencies, how is it different in Wales?
Mr McGarry: Recently the Welsh
Assembly decided initially to abolish the Welsh Arts Council altogether,
as a process of eliminating quangoes, as they are sometimes called
generally. They retreated from that but took to the Assembly itself
the funding of the major clients of the Welsh Arts Council, the
Welsh National Opera, Theatre Cymru and so on, and so those decisions
about funding are determined by the politicians in the Assembly
rather than the Arts Council, and we think that is a dangerous
precedent and would not want to see it happen in England, Scotland
or Northern Ireland.
Q451 Chris Bryant: Does anyone else want
to say anything about the Arts Council's role?
Mr Donaghy: I think it is almost
one of these organisations or institutions where it is a bit like
the curate's egg; I think it does some good work and there is
other work it could be doing a lot better. They had an initiative
a couple of years ago trying to improve diversity within the theatre
industry and I do not think they have delivered on that, so I
think that is one area where it could be imposing itself more
on the organisations that receive funding.
Mr Trubridge: As the invitation
was extended, I would also like to say on behalf of the MU that
we become unhappy when the Arts Council funded dance projects
that are using recorded music, which has happened recently. We
believe that the public expect dance, ballet to be performed to
live music.
Q452 Derek Wyatt: The Government has
a quest to create specialist schools, secondary schools which
will be in (some) arts and music and theatre. What contact have
you had with any of the specialist schools which have acting,
drama or theatre or ballet in them?
Mr McGarry: I think the honest
answer to that is not very much, and we have probably been remiss
in that and we probably ought to make those kinds of contacts.
We do have very well established contacts with students who have
moved into drama school; we have a former student membership,
we contact them and we give them advice and so on about the profession
and afford them student membership and then they come on into
full membership once they graduate from their courses, so we have
that kind of contact. But with the schools, other than through
the work of our members, where there are outreach theatre in education
groups going into those schools, I think the honest answer is
that we have not had enough contact there and we should perhaps
have more.
Ms Payne: Can I add to that, to
say that where we have traditionally had the best contact is through
the National Campaign for Drama Training, and the schools that
provide vocational drama training where Equity is one of the three
founding members of that. So with those schools we have very direct
input into the professional training of actors and stage managers.
Q453 Derek Wyatt: My poorest school,
Sittingbourne Community College, in my patch, has just won drama
and theatre status; maybe you would like to use it as a pilot
to understand how you can work?
Mr Ford Davies: Yes.
Q454 Derek Wyatt: It sure does need a
lot of help. For kids who cannot read and write the only thing
they can do is talk and act and play because they can get their
dignity that way, and they need help, and you may consider how
you can help them.
Mr McGarry: We will do precisely
that.
Q455 Derek Wyatt: Let me just ask one
more question. When we are comparing this scheme—and you
answered Chris's question about arts, and you answered it in terms
of America—in terms European funding by other countries,
are they always more generous? Is it just because the culture
seems to be more important in some—and I am thinking of
France, Germany and Italy? Are your experiences that they are
better or worse or about the same in funding?
Mr Landis: My experience is on
tour in Germany, that the theatre in Hamburg got as much money
for the year as the whole of the British theatre got, so it tells
us that some countries in Europe truly appreciate the arts.
Mr McGarry: The pattern is very
diverse, however. We have very strong links with the Unions in
the rest of Europe and the rest of the world and, for example,
you will see that in Spain there has been a very considerable
cutback on funding of theatre and in Portugal the same, and in
Greece—Greece of all places—there have been cutbacks
in the public funding of theatre there, and even in Germany—Harry
is right—although the overall level of funding is much greater
a lot of that has been clawed back now and there is not the same
level of funding there once was; but nevertheless most of them,
Scandinavian countries included, do provide per head much higher
investment in their theatre than we do in this country.
Chairman: Frank Doran.
Q456 Mr Doran: One of the big issues
we have been looking at in relation to the London theatre is the
bid by the independent theatres for about £125 million of
public money to repair the fabric of the London commercial theatres,
and one of the key arguments that they are making is the state
of backstage facilities. Can you say a little about that, first
about the idea of public money going into the commercial theatre,
particularly given the points that you are making about Government
support for the theatre generally, and also the general state
of backstage facilities?
Mr McGarry: Perhaps the actors
could say and the MU could say something about backstage conditions.
I understand your inquiry has made some visits to theatres and
so on, but the backstage conditions are, frankly, quite appalling;
there are not many other professional workers who would accept
the conditions that even leading members of the profession have
to experience behind the scenes, and if there is going to be investment
in the refurbishing of theatres then that should be a priority.
In the past it has not always been so; the front of house and
the auditorium have been improved but backstage conditions have
sadly been left alone on the assumption that the performers will
tolerate those sort of circumstances. On the general issue of
funding for the refurbishment of the privately owned theatres,
I think we want to say things about that. Firstly, we would not
want to see any such funding come from existing sources, we would
not want to see the money currently going to the core activity
of our publicly supported theatres being taken away in order to
be used to enhance and improve West End theatres. That is the
first thing. The second thing is that we would want to see as
a condition of that granting that backstage conditions were improved.
We would also like to see the industry itself take some initiatives.
Cameron Mackintosh and others have demonstrated that it is possible
to plough back some of your profits into refurbishing theatres
and we would like to see that happen. I think we would be in favour
of tax incentives to encourage the refurbishment because there
is undoubtedly a great need. If you look across London, the West
End in particular, a lot of those theatres were built about the
same time and do need to be improved. Audiences quite often are
expected to endure circumstances and conditions which are not
the best for them as an audience and that does need to be addressed.
But the first thing is that we would not want to see any investment
going in that direction having been diverted away from the core
funding of the publicly funded theatres.
Mr Ford Davies: At the same time
I do feel very strongly that the West End theatres are a kind
of national treasure and that they are in some ways comparable
to the National Gallery and the Tate and even to Westminster Abbey,
if you like. Certainly as a tourist attraction, the West End theatres
are one of the main reasons why people want to come to this country.
The second point I would like to make is that the larger theatres
which are being refurbished are for musicals which can make a
lot of money. The smaller theatres, or the theatres seating 700
or 800, let us say Wyndhams, next to Leicester Square Tube, would
be a very good example, is not a theatre that can make a great
deal of money; there is not a great deal of money to be made out
of putting on straight plays. About one in ten makes a huge profit,
two or three do quite well and six probably lose money. So the
managements who run those smaller theatres do not have the money
to refurbish them; I do think that is quite genuinely true, and
I would certainly be in favour of seeing some public money being
put in.
Q457 Mr Doran: One of the difficulties
for me is that there does not seem to be any shortage of people
wanting to buy these theatres, and where you are sitting now we
had a row of theatre owners, all of whom said, "The problem
is we did not know the extent of the problem when we bought the
theatre," but if I said that when I bought my house and I
had not had a proper survey done, I would be pretty foolish.
Mr Ford Davies: The problem with
backstage at a lot of these theatres of course is endemic from
the way they were built. You only have to look at the ground plans
of these 1900 theatres and you can see how much space was given
to the front of the house and how little space for the back of
the house. So it is not an easy solution as to how much you are
going to improve backstage facilities. We have had rats going
across orchestra pits.
Mr Trubridge: I was the London
official for the Musicians' Union for quite a long time and I
did a lot of health and safety visits to backstage facilities
looking at the band rooms. The thing is, particularly with modern
musical theatre, the technical requirements are so much greater
than they were 10 or 15 years ago even that people have to outdo
themselves all the time. Willy's members, for instance, have a
lot of equipment, a lot of stuff that has to be stored backstage
and often when you go down to visit the band the band are not
in the band room because the band room is being used as a storage
room and the band are being housed somewhere else, a long way
from any wash facilities, in very poor conditions. It is a bit
of a cliché, but orchestra pits are appropriately named—pit
is a good word for it because it is a horrible place to work,
and mice running across the floor during a performance is not
a rare thing. They do work in the very worst of conditions—terribly
hot during the summer months with no proper air conditioning or
anything like that, and it can also be extremely cold during the
winter as well. It is the last place you would want to work, basically,
and it is our experience that when these theatres are renovated
that it is the backstage facilities and the orchestra pit that
is given the least consideration. Finally, I would like to say
that when we are looking at renovating theatres we do want to
make sure that there is no downsizing of the orchestra pits because
this is something else that we have seen happening—"Let
us make the auditorium a bit bigger, let us make the stage a bit
bigger," and it is at the expense of the pit. Then Cameron
wants to go in and move Les Mis there or whatever and he
wants to use a virtual orchestra instead of a proper orchestra
because he says the pit is not big enough. So these are things
that we want to see borne in mind.
Q458 Derek Wyatt: As Unions are you involved
in any discussions at all with the theatres about the negotiations
they are having with the Lottery Fund and the DCMS or the Arts
Council; are you involved at all?
Mr McGarry: On this particular
issue, do you mean?
Q459 Derek Wyatt: Yes.
Mr McGarry: No, we have not been
invited to participate in those discussions, no.
Mr Donaghy: Not really. Generally
they want our support, but they want our support very rarely.
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