A golden age of American propaganda and AI-generated musicals awaits...
Trump's Kennedy Center takeover, the fight against AI, a slew of star-studded Shakespeares, and a look back at the last 25 years of British theatre. All in this week's Shouts and Murmurs.
Hello, and welcome to Shouts And Murmurs, a weekly email (mostly) for paid supporters of The Crush Bar, written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Every Tuesday, I round up the best theatre writing elsewhere - news, reviews, interviews, opinions - plus any other interesting or inspiring theatre stuff I find.
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Previously in The Crush Bar:
ICYMI in Friday’s issue, I have tentatively started a chat for subscribers. It was arguably popping off over the weekend with people sharing the moments from shows that live in their head rent-free. Thanks to those that made sure I was not just shouting into the online void and contributed. You can join them below, where I may post something after pressing send on this much-delayed newsletter…
Inscribed on the side the John F Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts in Washington, DC, is a quote…
It JFK, writing in response to a letter from Theodate Johnson, editor of Musical America magazine, in the lead-up to the 1960 presidential election…
“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth also the age of Shakespeare.”
If we go with that - and that is a big if, as I’m not sure it is a thesis that holds up to that much scrutiny - presumably there is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between regression in public life and regression in the arts? So it seems.
The age of Trump, for example, is also the age of rogue presidents taking over beloved cultural institutions that they never attend, flooding them with philistine acolytes, cancelling acclaimed plays in favour of “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas” and ushering in “a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture.” It is quite fun to imagine what a season programmed by Trump would actually look like: a revival of Glen Garry Glen Ross, perhaps, and Oklahoma! done properly? On all this, read The Onion, laugh, then read David Smith in The Guardian, and cry, but also marvel at the idea that famous LGBTQ+ advocate Dolly Parton would get involved…
“And at CPAC last week, when Grenell was asked what he thought the ideal performance at the Kennedy Center would be, he chose the country singer Dolly Parton. “I would love to see it,” he said.
Indeed, his boss’s cultural palate is frozen in the 20th century. Trump is known to admire singers such as Elvis Presley and films such as Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. His campaign rallies warm up with numbers from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, open with Greenwood’s God Bless the USA and close with the Village People’s YMCA. His celebrity supporters include Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid, Kid Rock, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight. Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, is an aspiring singer seemingly immune to bad reviews.”
The age of Starmer, too, is the age of artists - including playwrights and composers - being thrown under the AI bus by a government so desperate to look like it has some ideas about the economy that it is prepared to tear up centuries-old copyright laws to cosy-up to the slop-merchants of Silicon Valley. On this, take a look Andrew Lloyd Webber and his nepo-baby in The Guardian, wonder at their hypocrisy, enjoy the truly terrible pun in the sixth paragraph, but accept that they also do have a very valid point. See also: a wraparound ad being run on every British newspaper today.
“In 1710, Britain introduced the world’s first copyright law, the Statute of Anne, setting the global standard for protecting creators. Until then, authors found the copyright to their work belonged to the printers of that work. Self-publishing was effectively illegal, but the statute gave writers the ability to own their own creations. This was right and now seems obvious. It is extraordinary that more than 300 years later this government is planning to dismantle those protections.”
The age of Arts Council England boss Darren Henley is the age of shady, ill-thought-out shake-ups of crucial funding programmes being paused because they would have caused “catastrophic” damage to the industry. The changes to the National Lottery Project Grant scheme - one grant at a time, only two applications per year - were essentially a way of delaying demand rather than addressing the actual problem of demand vastly outstripping available funds, a bit like at the airport where they make you queue in an endless snake at passport control instead of opening another booth. On this, read Lyn Gardner in The Stage, of course. And, perhaps take some heart from the fact that culture secretary Lisa Nandy does seem to be able to find more money for the arts from somewhere, while she is not dishonouring the legacy of Jennie Lee.
“ACE has now temporarily stepped back from the brink and intends to consult more widely. Much more widely, I hope, and not just with the usual suspects. There needs to be much harder listening, too. Not least because, as several have suggested, the shape of the proposals and the haste with which ACE was trying to push them through – before leaks led to such wide spread industry dismay – made it look as though ACE did not have a grip on the ecology, the way that building and non-building-based work is connected and how badly non-NPOs – but also NPOs in the longer term – would be affected.”
And the age of BBC director general Tim Davie is the age of BBC radio drama - a long-standing jewel of the airwaves, a lifeline for lonely people everywhere, and a well-trodden route into theatre, film and television - being progressively dismantled. Sure, a lot of it was rubbish, but some of it was great, and some of the people that had their early plays produced on the airwaves - Roy Williams, James Graham, debbie tucker green - went on to do amazing stuff. On this, read Katie Hims in The Observer.
“Why does this matter? It matters because BBC radio has historically played a unique role in the development of drama in this country. Radio drama is a unique art form that reaches millions of listeners and offers a tremendous range and variety of stories from the epic series to the small and local. These cuts have terrible implications for actors and writers, for diversity, inclusion and access… Should we really just shrug our shoulders at the prospect of it all disappearing?”
It seems like artists are being screwed over everywhere you look right now, doesn’t it? What will happen? Is everything totally fucked? Are we doomed to a world in which prestigious cultural organisations are commandeered by right-wing gobshites, in which we are all swamped by AI-generated simulacrums of art instead of the real thing, in which actual artists are forced to jump through ever higher hoops in a furious funding free-for-all, and in which we won’t even have The Archers to comfort us? Maybe, but maybe not, because truth is that JFK wrong with that quote on the side of the Kennedy Center, and that miserable times often lead to resilient, imaginative artists making magnificent art. How else do you explain The White Lotus?
In other news: actor Athena Stevens has launched legal proceedings against Shakespeare’s Globe; there will be a bit more money for the Arts Council of Wales; the Bridge Theatre will stage Into The Woods and bring back A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Sheffield Theatres will stage Dancing At Lughnasa and Summer Holiday; Paines Plough will tour a new play by Ed Edwards and the 2022 winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting; a seminal Midsomer Murders episode is being adapted for the stage; Ballet Shoes is coming back to the NT; Charity Scot-ART has taken over Summerhall.