I turn thirty today and I've spent ten years writing about theatre. This is how it is going.
It's my birthday and I'll guilt trip you into becoming a paid supporter of this newsletter if I want to. Plus: three shows to see. Also: I'm taking a fortnight off.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a newsletter about theatre written by Fergus Morgan.
This is the free, Friday issue, which usually contains a Q&A with an exciting theatremaker or an essay on a theatre-related topic. This week, though, it is slightly different. Today is my thirtieth birthday and it is also about ten years since I started doing this theatre journalism thing, so I took the opportunity to write about the past, present and future of my career.
Before I forget, as a bit of a birthday gift to myself, I am taking the next two weeks off to focus on some other projects I have got bubbling away. That means you will not be receiving any issues of this newsletter after this one until the week beginning Monday April 15.
In case you missed it, below is this week’s issue of Shouts And Murmurs, which is a weekly round-up of the most interesting reviews, interviews and other articles on theatre. It is usually only for paid supporters but this issue is paywall-free so you can see what you are missing.
You can get Shouts And Murmurs straight in your inbox every week by signing up as a paid supporter of The Crush Bar for £5/month or £50/year. If you don’t feel like paying but still want to get the newsletter, then just reply to this email saying so, and I will make that happen.
There are a couple more things you can do to support this newsletter: you can share it with anyone you think might enjoy it and encourage them to subscribe, and you can use it for promotional purposes. There is more info about that here. Right, on with the introspection.
I turn thirty today and I’m feeling absolutely fine about it, thanks. It’s just a number. Thirty. Two times fifteen. Three times ten. Fifty minus twenty. Forty minus ten. As I say, just a number. So, could you please stop going on about it?
In a neat correlation, I also started writing about theatre almost a decade ago. Now, then, seems like an appropriate moment to take a step back and figure out where my career went so drastically wrong and how I can get it back on track. I’m kidding. Well, I’m not: this is a searingly honest survey of the last ten years, a breakdown of what my job looks like today, and some thoughts about where I want it to go from here.
I’m not sure I ever wanted to become a theatre journalist. It just happened. I started doing free stuff as a student, luckily landed a few paid gigs, then somehow managed to cobble everything together into some kind of career. And I’m still cobbling.
The first review I wrote was of a student production of The History Boys at Oxford Playhouse. I did it for The Reviews Hub and, although it is long gone online, I did just manage to dig out a copy from the depths of my hard drive. It starts, “One wonders whether it is possible not to enjoy a production of The History Boys…” and it is also full of phrases like “commendably proficient”, “remarkably convincing” and “thoroughly recommendable.” Can you tell my mum, weirdly, bought The Telegraph?
The first time I got paid to write a review was in 2016, when I covered Trevor Nunn’s truly terrible production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, as part of a competition The Stage briefly ran to find new critics. I just read it back and I think it’s quite good! I start with an apposite quote from the play itself – “There is not one word apt, one player fitted” – and label the show “a passionless triumph of concept over content.” Take that, Trev! I actually won that competition, marking the first and last time I have beaten my fellow finalist Kate Wyver at anything.
I have lost count of the number of reviews I have written in the eight years since then. I imagine it is somewhere in the high hundreds. I’ve done reviews for The Stage, WhatsOnStage, TimeOut, The Financial Times, Exeunt, The Evening Standard, The Independent and more. I’ve also done a lot of other stuff. I have written promotional content for a chauffeur service. I have interviewed a woman who paramotors with ospreys. I have worked as a cricket coach in primary schools. Best of all, I have produced some copy for a live concert screening of Twilight: “Relive the remarkable story that started it all in a cinematic experience unlike any other.” *Chef’s kiss*
I still do a lot of different things. These days, it is mostly focused on theatre, thankfully. In a shock development, I moved to Edinburgh in 2019 – my wonderful, gainfully employed partner is Scottish – so I do a lot of stuff about Scotland, but I still write about theatre across the UK. Last year, I became The Stage’s Scotland correspondent. I contribute reviews and features regularly to a few other publications. And I wang on about all sorts of things here in The Crush Bar, which I started in 2021. I have, with a little luck, managed to make a career in freelance arts journalism work.
It takes a lot of effort, though. Take last week, for example. On Monday, I wrote and filed a 1200-word feature and an 800-word interview to The Stage. On Tuesday, I had two meetings, then wrote and filed another 1200-word feature. On Wednesday, I wrote last week’s issue of Shouts And Murmurs and published it, then saw a show. On Thursday, I wrote last week’s issue of The Crush Bar and saw and reviewed a show. On Friday, I published The Crush Bar, then went to Newcastle to write about a conference thing. Amid all that, I also did a whole bunch of interviews, wrote three news articles, read some scripts for a theatre, and kept on top of my emails and tweets.
Why do I have to do so much? Frankly, it is because the pay for freelance arts journalism is terrible, so I have to in order to make ends meet. Would you, for example, be surprised that I got paid the same rate per word for that review I wrote on Thursday night as I got for that first professional review I did of Trevor Nunn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2016? Well, I did. So, with inflation, I effectively got less.
The reasons why pay is so bad for freelance arts journalism in the UK are too boring and complex to go into, but the consequences are easy to summarise. Firstly, I work really hard, get paid comparatively little, and make do with own-brand peanut butter, when I really want the bougie organic Meridian stuff. And secondly, arguably more importantly, arts journalism in the UK is degraded, because most arts journalists simply have to do too much stuff to make ends meet. I wrote about this a bit in Shouts And Murmurs – here, paywall-free – on Tuesday. Quality journalism takes expertise, resources and time. All of that is in short supply, thus quality arts journalism is, too.
Sometimes, I wonder why I am doing this. Sometimes, I actually wonder whether I care about theatre that much. Inevitably, though, I then see a show that restores my enthusiasm for it. Two weeks ago, I was in London and saw Jez Butterworth’s The Hills Of California. Have you seen The Hills Of California? It’s brilliant! Last week, I saw Wise Children’s Blue Beard at the Edinburgh Lyceum. That was excellent, too!
And I do genuinely believe that the theatre industry needs good theatre journalism. Okay, maybe West End shows can sell all the tickets they need through star casting, online influencers and tube posters. But smaller shows still do need critical coverage to survive, the industry still needs analysis and argument to evolve, and, lest we forget, a lot of very dodgy stuff happens in the performing arts that still needs scrutinising. And, hey, people who like theatre might like some entertaining content occasionally.
The question that needs answering is: what does a sustainable future for quality theatre journalism look like? Or, to put it in a bluntly personal context, how can esteemed theatre journalist Fergus earn more cash? Believe me, I am looking for answers. Print media is dying. The theatre industry is struggling. I find myself sat in the middle of that cheerful Venn diagram, scratching around for solutions. Since 2021, I have been pursuing a different model of theatre journalism, funded by alternative sources, i.e. you, reader. This is, give or take, the 150th issue of that attempt.
I have been publishing interviews with emerging artists, essays about theatre, and all sorts of other stuff in this newsletter for over three years. It has been a long process. For the first two years, I was focused on growing the number of free subscribers. Since January, I have been attempting to convert those 2700 free subscribers into paid supporters to build a modestly profitable platform for my writing. And it is going okay! As I write, 77 of you chip in and get a little extra content each week as a result.
Where do I want to go from here? Well, what I really want to do is sit on the sofa all day, watch Dune and eat big bowls of pasta. Failing that, though, I will settle for a sustainable career in theatre journalism that befits a thirty-year-old man with a mortgage and a fourteen-year-old dog that needs six pills a day to keep his heart pumping. I want to keep producing thorough and thoughtful writing about theatre and not be paid a pittance for it. And – finally! – you can help by joining those 77 paid supporters. Go on. It is my birthday after all. I deserve that pricey peanut butter.
Three shows to see next week
Gunter - Royal Court Theatre, until April 25
This debut show from Dirty Hare was a big, award-winning hit at the Edinburgh Fringe last year. Co-created by Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon - and performed by Higman, Grogan, plus the brilliant Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Norah Lopez Holden - it is a weird, funny, and experimental historical drama about a football match, a murder and a witch trial in a seventeenth-century Oxfordshire village. Now it transfers to David Byrne’s Royal Court Theatre for a three-week run. I loved it and you will, too. You can get tickets via the button below.
The Last Show Before We Die - Yard Theatre, until April 13
I recommended this show back in January when it transferred to the Yard Theatre after a successful run in the Paines Plough Roundabout at the Edinburgh Fringe last August. Now, I’m recommending it again because it’s back. Ell Potter and Mary Higgins are the theatre-making duo behind hit shows Hotter and Fitter. This is apparently the last show they will ever do together - although they did say that last summer and they’ve done it once already since then. It uses physical comedy, audience interaction, recorded interviews and lots more to affectingly explore the act of saying goodbye. The Guardian’s Kate Wyver gave it five stars and called it “vividly, viscerally alive.” You can get tickets for the button below.
The Children - Nottingham Playhouse, until April 6
I remember the premiere of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children back in 2016. Since then, it has become something of a contemporary classic. Set in a Suffolk kitchen, it is a starkly beautiful, powerfully disquieting three-hander about inter-generational angst, following three retired physicists in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. Kirsty Patrick Ward’s production stars Clive Mantle, Caroline Harker and Sally Dexter, and runs at Nottingham Playhouse until the end of next week. The Stage’s Dave Fargnoli called it “a fascinating examination of selfishness, self-sacrifice and our moral obligation to future generations” and gave it four stars. You can get tickets via the button below.
That’s all for this issue and for the next fortnight
That is it for The Crush Bar until the week beginning Monday April 15. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this newsletter or email me at fergusmorgan@hotmail.co.uk. Or you can find me on Twitter/X.
A quick reminder of the ways you can support The Crush Bar. You can share it. You can use it for promotional purposes. And you can become a paid supporter, which means you get an extra weekly email, Shouts and Murmurs, every Tuesday. There are currently 2708 subscribers, 77 of whom are currently paid supporters. If you would like to join them, you can do so above.
Fergus