Theatre's toxic relationship with Twitter/X is distracting from the industry's real worries.
Theatremaker on theatremaker violence is wrong! Stop it! Plus: some news about this newsletter and three shows to see...
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a newsletter about theatre written by Fergus Morgan.
To start: some news. Last week, I got funding from the Scottish Society Of Playwrights to pursue a project I am passionate about: a podcast about the history of Scottish drama, which I am going to be making in collaboration with Bespoken Media and the Traverse Theatre.
It means that I am going to have a bit less time to dedicate to The Crush Bar over the next few months, which means there is going to be a small change to these Friday issues. Instead of featuring an essay AND an interview, they are going to feature an essay OR an interview from now on. Shouts And Murmurs, the extra email for paid supporters, will carry on as normal.
That’s everything. I hope you understand. In case you missed it, here is Tuesday’s issue of Shouts And Murmurs, which has review round-ups of The Hills Of California, Till The Stars Come Down, and more, plus links to a load more interviews and articles worth reading…
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Some people should not be trusted with some things in case they do serious damage. Children should not be trusted with scissors. Liz Truss should not be trusted with the economy. Andrew Lloyd Webber should not be trusted with a piano.
Increasingly, I think theatremakers should not be trusted with social media, too. Theatre Twitter used to be quite a fun place of passionate but relatively polite debate. There used to be a sense of compassion, courage and collective progress. People disagreed, of course, but there was a level of professional respect and assumed integrity. I see very little of that on X.com today. In its place, I see a swamp of ill-informed takes, bad faith readings, and – sorry – plain, poor-me whining.
Take last week, for example. On Tuesday, a rumour spread that the Royal Court Theatre, under its new director David Byrne, was planning to axe its entire literary department. Outrage ensued. Everyone got very angry very quickly. The theatre was labelled “disgraceful” and it was accused of abnegating its responsibility to nurture new playwriting – before the truth was even established.
The rumours turned out to be inaccurate. On Wednesday, The Stage reported that the theatre was going through a round of voluntary redundancies prompted by the dire financial straits it finds itself in. Compulsory redundancies could follow, of course – but the country’s leading new writing theatre is not about to abandon the principles that have defined it for the last seven decades. It just is not. And getting mad as if it is for the sake of a few likes only makes a social media manager’s day miserable.
There are myriad more recent examples of the grim mess that Theatre Twitter/X has become, from the surreally spiralling arguments over Ralph Fiennes’ unfortunate views on trigger warnings, to the lack of empathy and nuance in the discourse about Michelle Terry casting herself as Richard III, to the daily examples of theatremakers receiving rejections and then moaning that the system is broken. Few talk sense.
Yes, Ralph Fiennes is misguided, Michelle Terry has been clumsy, and it is extremely challenging to construct a career in the arts at the moment. Having an opinion about all that is fine. Suggesting on social media that Fiennes is a fascist and Terry a megalomaniac is not. And, as director Josh Roche tweeted: “Can everyone just stop saying ‘the system is broken’ about every fucking thing? It adds absolutely nothing, provides no solution, and means precisely fuck all.” Why not take after Roche and his fellow director Derek Bond and do something constructive about it instead?
There are bigger forces at work here. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter/X in 2022, the user experience of the site has nosedived. Disagreement was always good for the algorithm: now, it is ravenous. And the arts industry itself is enduring the toughest of times. Theatres, including the Royal Court, are in trouble. Freelance theatremakers are struggling. The system genuinely is broken. Everyone is justifiably down.
There are greater dangers to resorting to shitty social media behaviour, too, though, beyond making social media managers miserable. Conscientious artists getting mad at conscientious artists lets the genuine villains – this terrible shower of a government – off the hook. Freelancers turning on venues, regional theatres turning on London, subsidised organisations turning against commercial ones over absolutely everything distracts from the bigger battle: the fight to properly fund the arts. If you are going to get mad, then please direct it at your local Tory MP, not your local theatre.
Yes, times are hard for various reasons. Yes, there is not a lot of spare cash lying around. Yes, theatres are being forced to reluctantly make difficult, damaging decisions. Without wanting to get too Bono about it, the thing that makes the theatre industry great, though, is the passion and compassion of its people. Trust me: I talk to a lot of theatremakers and very few of you are genuine dickheads. If we lose that passion and that compassion, then there is little left that is worth funding.
So, yes, some people should not be trusted with some things. A Conservative government should not be trusted with a theatre industry. Some people should be trusted, though. David Byrne should be trusted to do the right thing at the Royal Court. Ralph Fiennes should be forgiven for being a bit old-fashioned. Michelle Terry should not be treated – like Emma Rice – as a maniac. And theatremakers should be trusted with Twitter/X, too, if they exercise a bit more empathy and understanding.
Three shows to see next week
Samuel Takes A Break… - Yard Theatre, until March 23
Rhianna Ilube’s debut play - full title Samuel Takes A Break… In Male Dungeon No. 5 After A Lond But Generally Successful Day Of Tours - was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award. Now, it receives its world premiere at the hand of Yard Theatre deputy artistic director Anthony Simpson-Pike. It centres on two black Brits who visit a former slave fort in Ghana and meet local tour guide Samuel and ticket officer Orange, and it promises a “captivating exploration of colonialism’s enduring impact on British identity.” Its Hackney Wick run has already been extended. You can get tickets via the button below.
Jack - various, until March 8
A Play, A Pie and A Pint - Glasgow’s long-running series of lunchtime plays - returns next week with the first of eighteen new plays that will premiere at its Oran Mor home this spring. Jack, by Liam Moffat, is a dark comic monologue focusing on one man dealing with grief and an unwanted puppy. Staged by Gareth Nicholls, artistic director of the Traverse Theatre, it runs in Glasgow for a week before touring to Edinburgh and Stirling. You can get tickets via the button below.
Cable Street - Southwark Playhouse, until March 16
This new musical from playwright Tim Gilvin and composer Alex Kanefsky tells the story of the confrontation between Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and a group of Jews, Irish workers, and trade unionists in East London in 1936. Directed by Adam Lenson and featuring an ensemble of emerging and established musical stars, it runs at Southwark Playhouse for a month. You can get tickets via the button below.
That’s all for this issue
That is it for this week. 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, where I am @FergusMorgan.
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Fergus