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Secret manoeuvres

Published Tuesday 26 June 2007 at 13:05

Recent copies of The Stage could have been sub-titled The Hidden Forces Which Shape Our Theatre. I’d like to give two of several examples as to why I think that.

A journalist of yours (Mark Shenton, June 14, page 6) has taken up the theme of the lack of opportunities given to non-white directors in British theatre. This is the first time I’ve seen this issue raised anywhere in the press.

Some three years ago three journalists in the broadsheets hailed as a breakthrough the fact that six subsidised London theatres were staging new plays by black playwrights within a six-month period. This was of course great news, but none of the journalists seemed to notice the equally important fact that all the productions had a white director.

The failure of most white directors of theatres to hand over power to black directors of plays will, I hope, stay on The Stage’s agenda as an issue to be watched.

So, I hope, does the issue which a contributor to your letters page last week called “the murky influence of the Arts Council England in its policy of regime change”. On this subject, your reporter Alistair Smith has been assiduously digging into the story behind the recent upheaval at the Bristol Old Vic, and so indeed have Lyn Gardner in the Guardian and David Lister in The Independent.

I am privy to no confidential information about the Bristol Old Vic, but I believe a major reason journalists have trouble getting to the heart of the story behind some upheavals in subsidised theatre is that regime changes are usually followed by silence from the departing director. Arts Council England has developed its technique in achieving this through its now defunct stabilisation and recovery schemes, into which commercial advisors had considerable input. Once entangled in those schemes, the theatre board was encouraged, as is of course common in the commercial world, to offer an extra payment, in a lump sum or in an increased pension, to the targeted director or administrator on condition that he or she will leave immediately and will swear never to speak publicly about the whole affair.

The blood is never traceable to the arts council’s hands, but the money to fund this offer, which some people can’t refuse because of personal circumstances, comes indirectly or directly from ACE. It is hard to envisage that there are many theatres which would be in a position to resist this form of persuasion from their major funder. Do journalists have a way of uncovering such dubious manoeuvres when public money is involved?

All strength to The Stage’s elbow in its investigative reporting.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Hedley

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