Shouts and Murmurs - January 21, 2025
Bad news in Bristol, a hit show at the Royal Court, David Tennant on Shakespeare, Lyn Gardner on Summerhall, and more...
Hello, and welcome to Shouts And Murmurs, a weekly email for paid supporters of The Crush Bar, written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Every week, I round up the best theatre writing elsewhere - news, reviews, interviews, opinion pieces, long-reads - plus any other interesting or inspiring theatre stuff I find.
At the moment, you can only read the top section for free, but have to get your wallet out if you want to read stuff on the other side of the paywall. It costs a mere £5/month or £50/year.
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Previously in The Crush Bar:
Yesterday was the blackest of blue Mondays but, don’t worry, Shouts and Murmurs is here with a barrel of uplifting performing arts news to brighten your week.
Just kidding: it is your usual round-up of theatrical news, reviews, interviews and more, most of which tilts towards the depressing. They say art reflects life, eh?
Things in the West Country go from bad to worse. Only a week after Bristol Old Vic Theatre School announced its decision to deprive of us of future Daniel Day Lewises, Bristol City Council became the latest local authority to contemplate cultural harikari and propose axing arts funding by 50 per-cent to balance its budget. Let’s hope the City Council listens to the voices making the case for the arts, or more of Bristol’s arts organisations will fold, and the city will join Birmingham, Nottingham, Suffolk, Dundee and others on the growing list of places that used to care about culture.
Some folks are setting store in the extra £1.3 billion Rachel Reeves announced for councils in her Autumn budget, but it is delusional to think that isn’t going to get entirely swallowed up by the black hole that is social care. Clearly, we need new models of funding. Martin Prendergast in The FT argues that the French model of tax-break-incentivised corporate philanthropy is the way to go, but isn’t that just state subsidy via the back door? Why not just cut out the middleman and tax corporations properly? Je ne sais pas. Je ne suis pas un économiste. Je suis un critique de théâtre.
Mais, I am excited by Michael Sheen as an actor (wouldn’t it be great if he played Blair one more time, except this time he is totally obsessed with AI?), an orator (I would follow him into battle after this speech) and as a man who puts his money where his mouth is. Could his funding of a new Welsh National Theatre set a trend? Might more stars that have got starts in subsidised theatre then made millions making movies chuck a few quid towards the arts? And what about the studios that have built empires on their backs? More on this prospect soon from me in, um, Prospect.
There’s one chink of light,. Here’s another: enough performing arts people have joined BlueSky for it to be a tiny bit funny sometimes, so I can once again sprinkle these posts with smirk-inducing screenshots. Here’s one to finish.
In other news: The Stage Awards were awarded last night; we lost two theatrical legends in Joan Plowright and Claire van Kampen; Regents’s Park’s production of Fiddler On The Roof will tour; the UK government found some pocket change for culture; Cambridge Arts Theatre has closed for refurbishment; Leith Theatre will run a pop-up summer season; 180 Edinburgh Fringe bursaries of £2500 are available.