Happy Christmas from The Crush Bar!
A look back at 2022, a look ahead to 2023, and some info on how you can help keep this newsletter going until 2024.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a weekly newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This issue is the last of 2022 – and it will feature a look back at the year in this newsletter, a little look forward at what 2023 has in store, and some info about how you can help keep it going until 2024.
Before all that, though, to paraphrase Greg Lake, I want to wish you a hopeful Christmas and a brave New Year. 2022 has been difficult for the performing arts industry – well, it’s been difficult for everyone – and we all deserve a round of applause and a big hug for getting through it.
So Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Round of applause. Big hug from me. Bring on 2023.
What you read in The Crush Bar in 2022.
This year, I have published exactly 50 issues of this newsletter. This is the 51st. In total, they have received over 53,000 views, and, currently, each one is sent into the inboxes of 1354 subscribers. All but two issues - admin ones - have featured at least one emerging theatre artist, including…
The writers Kate Reid, Jamie Hale, Claire Novello, Max Wilkinson, Alessandro Onorato, Dan Colley and Waleed Akhtar.
The performers Luke Hallgarten, Sam Ward, Jenna Fincken, Sophia Hatfield, Ibraheem Toure, Emma Tracey, Sophia Papadopoulos, Joana Nastari, Gemma Barnett, Alice Vilanculo and Hannah Kumari.
The designers Sam Wilde and Alys Whitehead and the directors Flo O’Mahoney, Georgie Bailey, Monae Robinson, Erin Mee, and Oscar Toeman.
The companies Barrel Organ Theatre, ANTS Theatre, This Is Not A Theatre Company, Ridiculusmus, Miracle Theatre, ChewBoy Productions, emma + pj, YesYesNoNo, The Revel Puck Circus, Zoo Co., Wildcard Theatre, Stute Theatre, CRIPtic Arts and Plain Heroines.
Twenty-one shows that should have run at VAULT Festival 2022, six shows that did run at Brighton Fringe, and 60 that were on at the Edinburgh Fringe – including my five favourite shows from emma + pj, Haley McGee, Kat Woods, Strange Futures and Ben Norris.
What will feature in The Crush Bar in 2023
The first couple of issues of The Crush Bar in the new year are already lined up. You can expect in-depth interviews with the director Vicky Moran, who is staging Misha Levkov’s In The Net at Jermyn Street Theatre in January, and the Italian performance artist Andrea Salustri, who performed his show Materia at the Edinburgh Fringe, and returns with it to London International Mime Festival.
After that, this newsletter will feature all things VAULT Festival – like it was supposed to at the same time last year before the festival’s unfortunate cancellation. There will be weekly picks of shows to see plus regular interviews with the artists behind those shows. Some of those slots will be open for promo purposes – look out for info on that from VAULT’s marketing team if you are interested.
What else? Well, it will be the usual combination of chats with emerging playwrights and producers, directors and designers, actors and artists – plus monthly picks of shows to see, and coverage of both Brighton and Edinburgh Fringes. As I try to remind readers – if there is ever a show, a company, or a theatremaker you want to shout about, get in touch and I will see what I can do to help!
I’m going to add one more thing into the mix, too: occasional opinion pieces. Don’t worry: I’m not going to inundate you with hot takes and half-baked thoughts. Every now and then, though, I get a bit upset, or a bit annoyed, or extremely enthusiastic about something happening in the theatre world – and I am planning on using this as a space to explore it further. We’ll see how it goes.
How you can keep this newsletter going.
The work that I put into The Crush Bar – the research, the interviewing, the writing, the editing, the publishing – takes up a substantial chunk of my week. As a professional journalist, I have to justify that time financially. I could put The Crush Bar behind a paywall, but that would defeat the point of it, and I am committed to keeping it entirely free to read anyway.
That does mean, though, that I need help – your help – to keep it going. There are three things you can do that are particularly useful:
You can become a paid subscriber. I introduced a paid subscription option on Substack in September, and I am extremely grateful to those of you who signed up. It does not get you anything extra – beyond the warm fuzzy feeling that you are doing your bit to support independent theatre journalism – but it does mean an awful lot to me. If you want to sign up as a paid subscriber, you can do so using the button below for the cost of a cup-and-a-half of coffee a month.
You can share it far and wide. The more people that subscribe and read this newsletter, the better – so I’d like to ask you to do a favour for me, right now, which is to forward this email to someone you think might be interested in it. Go on. If everyone that gets this newsletter shared it with one other person, that would do wonders for growing its readership. You can do that – or tweet about it, if you prefer – using the button below.
You can use this newsletter for promotional purposes. Every now and then, I open this space up to people who want to shout about their show. I don’t do it a lot, as I don’t want to inundate you with adverts, and I always make sure that it is relevant to readers’ interests. If you are a PR/marketing person, though, then feel free to get in touch to chat about it. You can find out more about using The Crush Bar for promo purposes using the button below.
That’s all from The Crush Bar in 2022. Thanks for reading, as ever. I really appreciate it. I am off to take the dog for a long walk on a beach in East Lothian, then I’m switching off my laptop until 2023. I’ll be back in your inboxes then.
Fergus