Item 7a Chair’s Foreword
Only three of the eight plays that make up the RSC's acclaimed 2003 Stratford Festival season will make it to London over this autumn and winter. The RSC’s Measure for Measure, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, As You Like It & Cymbeline will not be performed in the capital. This failure of the RSC to secure a comprehensive run of its 2003 Stratford season in London represents a serious loss to the city's theatre scene.
The RSC is perhaps the world's most famous theatre company and has for the past 40 years provided London with some great theatre. RSC performances at the Donmar, Aldwych and Barbican have introduced Londoners of all ages to Shakespeare and honed the talents of the likes of Judi Dench, Ian McKellan and Alan Rickman.
Excellence doesn't come cheap however. As a theatre company, the RSC is second only to the National Theatre in the level of funding it receives from the Arts Council. This year the RSC will receive more than £13 million of public money which is conditional on staging its plays in London. The RSC has failed to perform its core activities in 2003/04 and must not be allowed to do so again in 2004/05.
After hearing from the RSC, Arts Council and others it is clear to the Committee that that the RSC must re-establish a permanent and prominent presence in the capital. The RSC has set itself a deadline of October 2004 to establish a London RSC venue. We expect the RSC to meet it.
Similarly we expect the Arts Council to ensure that conditions for public funding are actually met. As the RSC's principle sponsor the Arts Council must ensure that they don’t write a blank cheque to the RSC for 2004/05 when there are many other organisations clamouring for arts funding in London.
We sincerely look forward to the RSC bringing its 2004 season in its entirety next year.
1 Item 7a 1. Introduction
1.1 For over four decades the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has developed and staged contemporary and vibrant high quality theatre in London that has contributed significantly to the capital’s reputation as one of the finest theatre cities in the world. For generations of Londoners the RSC have provided a powerful introduction not only to Shakespearean classics but to modern theatre. It is estimated that 850,000 people see RSC productions a year in the UK – over a quarter of which are under-25. 1
1.2 Since his plays were first performed in Southwark, Shakespeare has been synonymous with theatre in London. The RSC has had a permanent base in our capital starting with the Aldwych and Donmar during the 60’s and 70’s and the Barbican since 1982.
1.3 However, once the RSC decided to leave the Barbican in 2001, it has lacked a permanent base in London. This winter the RSC has only been able to secure a limited eight-week run part of this year’s Stratford season. At one stage even this limited run looked unlikely.
1.4 Without the RSC’s presence in London this winter Londoners access to Shakespeare has been compromised. The Guardian’s theatre critic, Michael Billington, told us:
….this winter all one gets in London is random Shakespeare productions: a very good Pericles in Hammersmith and two slightly eccentric versions of Romeo and Juliet at the Arts and the Young Vic. 2
1.5 The Committee decided to investigate this matter when in October this year it came to light that this year’s Stratford season was not likely to tour London. The Committee considers the RSC’s presence in London is vital not simply because of the added artistic value the RSC offers to London’s theatregoers. The RSC has a duty to perform in London as the large public subsidy that the RSC receives from the Arts Council is given on the assumption that they perform in London.
1.6 This brief report charts the reduced presence in London for the RSC and explores the options now available to both the RSC and bodies such as the Arts Council to ensure that the RSC secures a prominent and permanent presence in London. This report is also an opportunity to place on public record the evidence the Committee has received3 and to outline what we expect from the RSC and the Arts Council regarding a RSC presence in London in the future.
1.7 Chapter 2 examines the background to the decision to leave the Barbican in May 2002 and the subsequent attempts to develop an alternative RSC London presence – including harnessing the commercial sector as a possible provider of finance. It also looks at the role that the RSC’s principle source of funding, the Arts Council, played throughout.
1.8 Chapter 3 explores the options now available to the RSC and looks at the wider issue of the long-term viability for Shakespeare productions in London, both
1 http://www.rsc.org.uk/aboutthersc/51.asp 2 Michael Billington, November 2003, Appendix D 3 Appendices A-E includes the written and evidence received from the RSC, Arts Council, Barbican, Guardian Theatre Critic Michael Billington and the Society of London Theatres.
2 Item 7a RSC and non-RSC. With commercial producers more cautious and Shakespeare productions reporting losses there is no guarantee that Shakespeare will be staged within the commercial sector.
1.9 Chapter 4 looks at the role that funding agencies such as the Arts Council can play in plugging the gap left by the commercial sector and assesses to what extent subsidised organizations, such as the RSC, are held to account in performing the functions for which they are subsidised.
3 Item 7a 2. A Winter of Discontent Why did London miss out on the 2003 Stratford season?
Background 2.1 Peter Hall and Peter Brook formed the RSC as an ensemble touring company in 1960. Its founding aim was to reexamine Shakespeare; to “connect Shakespeare to contemporary drama.4” It sought to develop a comprehensive presence with a rolling ensemble that was both year-long and national. Today, the RSC employs approximately 500 people including directors, actors, writers, technicians and administrators. 2.2 The RSC’s base has always been Stratford-upon-Avon but its presence in London has been “absolutely vital5” to its continuing development. Initially the RSC established a residency at the Aldwych. The Aldwych housed RSC work throughout the year that would also include specifically commissioned London work. By 1977, the RSC had expanded its London presence to include the Donmar. However, the split essentially proved unwieldy and the RSC moved to the Barbican in 1982, where it remained until 2002.6
2.3 In the early 1990’s the RSC expanded its regional touring operation which included regular annual visits to Newcastle. As a result the RSC was no longer able to fulfill a twelve-month residency at the Barbican and reduced its residency to six months a year.
Leaving the Barbican
2.4 In May 2002, after a year of deliberating its artistic future under the previous management regime of Adrian Noble and Chris Foy, the RSC launched Project Fleet. The RSC feared that by tying itself to a handful of theatres, the company had become insufficiently flexible and too institutionalised. The project’s plans included:
• demolition and reconstruction of 1932 Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford at a cost of £100m;
• pulling out of a 10-year deal with the Barbican in favour of a more extensive touring schedule and of shorter runs in commercial West End venues
• doing away with two-year contracts in favour of short-term contracts, smaller companies of actors and staff cuts7
2.5 Adrian Noble said that he wanted to shift the emphasis of the company from a building-based one to an idea-based one and to encourage artistic flexibility (including the use of different theatre spaces)8.
2.6 Adrian Noble agreed to step down as the RSC’s Artistic Director in 2002 and was replaced by Michael Boyd in 2003. On Boyd’s succession, managing director Chris Foy also stepped down to be replaced by an Interim Managing Director, Vikki Heywood.
4 Michael Billington, November 2003, Appendix D 5 RSC written submission, Appendix A 6 The RSC’s written submission provides a timeline of events from 1960 to the present day. 7 www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,576400,00.html 8 www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4193239-103690,00.html
4 Item 7a 2.7 Much of Project Fleet has since been abandoned. Boyd has stated that a core rolling ensemble of 38 RSC actors will be employed for his inaugural season in 2004 and the renovation work in Stratford is unlikely to start for a few years. However, the one remaining legacy from the aborted Project Fleet remains the decision to leave the Barbican and seek an alternative London presence.
2.8 At the Barbican, the RSC was guaranteed a six-month residency each year in the Pit and the Barbican Theatres (supported by the City of London Corporation to with a grant of £3 million a year, that was due to be reduced to just over £2million in May 20029). The reasons the RSC gave for leaving the Barbican, outlined in written evidence to the Committee, included the following.
• Audiences were “put off by the Barbican’s separateness from restaurants, bars and the general ‘buzz’ associated with a night out at the theatre”.
• Actors, directors and designers did not enjoy playing and working at the Barbican, with “some choosing not to work with the Company” citing its subterranean offices, rehearsal and backstage.
• The Barbican residency had been a constraint on the RSC’s planning.
• Transfers from the RSC’s 430-seat Swan theatre in Stratford to the Barbican’s 180-seat Pit theatre never provided a satisfactory or economically viable solution for the RSC.10
2.9 In written evidence, the Arts Council supported the RSC’s decision to leave the Barbican; it felt that the venue was “compromising the artistic strength of the company”11 and that an alternative London presence should be sought. However, in its oral evidence, the Arts Council admitted that it did request a stronger business case from the RSC about the decision to leave. Eventually it accepted the force of the RSC’s argument and continued supporting the RSC with a similar level of funding.
2.10 The RSC announced its decision to leave the Barbican in May 2001 without consulting the Barbican over the decision. “With the glorious benefit of hindsight”12 the RSC accepts that the way in which the RSC left the Barbican should have been different. The Arts Council too admitted that with hindsight the advice that it gave the RSC might have been stronger.
2.11 The plan met with ferocious opposition and prompted the resignation of RSC board members, actors and designers. Michael Billington felt that the thinking behind this decision was “arrant nonsense”.
It is precisely through buildings that companies achieve permanence, continuity, a fixed identity. Audiences like to know where they can find the RSC. A building also enables a company to do all kinds of extra-curricular activity- workshops, lectures, talks, demonstrations, open rehearsals etc- to complement the production of plays. I am confident that Michael Boyd realises the vital importance of all this.13
9 RSC submission, Appendix A 10 Ibid 11 Arts Council Written Submission, Appendix B 12 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 13 Michael Billington, November 2003, Appendix D
5 Item 7a
Beyond the Barbican
2.12 Since leaving the Barbican in May 2002 RSC work has been performed in many London venues (including the Camden Round House, Haymarket, Gielgud, Old Vic, and Southwark). The RSC has even returned briefly to the Barbican with a five-week run of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children.
2.13 The season of three plays at the Roundhouse in Camden, staged in a purpose built wooden drum, was a financial disaster, becoming a “significant contributor”14 to the RSC’s current £2.8 million deficit.
2.14 West End performances, underwritten by commercial producers, have also run into trouble. The Jacobethan season (Dec-Mar 2002/03) at the Gielgud, despite strong early audiences, apparently reported a £1 million loss for commercial producers Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt and last summer the run at the Old Vic of Coriolanus and the Merry Wives of Windsor was ended three weeks early.
2.15 In Spring 2003, the RSC decided that, already burdened with a £2.8 million deficit, that it would be unable to “expose themselves to a speculative risk in London this year.”15 The RSC decided instead to pursue the practice of moving productions to London that were underwritten by commercial producers.
2.16 Negotiations with a number of commercial producers proved fruitless in the main. The RSC was also unable to secure a limited London life for the majority of the 2003 Festival Season productions – a failure the RSC attributes to the more cautious mood of the commercial theatre in London. When “push came to shove there were very few commercial producers who had enough in their coffers, enough confidence in the London theatre scene, to expose themselves to a risk.”16
2.17 Therefore as a responsible employer, the RSC was not able to take up options that they had on the actors. It was at this point, in October 2003 that the story broke in the press, that for the first time since its reinvention in 1960 London would not see any of the RSC Stratford summer season over the winter.
2.18 Shortly after the Committee’s evidentiary hearing it was announced that it managed to salvage a “strictly limited”17 eight week run of the acclaimed pairing of the The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed would be staged at the West End’s Queen Theatre.
2.19 We welcome the fact that the RSC will at least tour part of its Stratford 2003 season in London this winter. However this piecemeal provision is both inadequate for Londoners and, by the RSC’s own admission, unsustainable.
14 RSC Written Submission, Appendix A 15 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 16 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 17 What’s on Stage, 12th November 2003
6 Item 7a 3. Masters of their own fate? Future options for the RSC
3.1 Despite the problems and short term stop gaps the RSC appear keen to re- establish a permanent and prominent presence in London. As Michael Boyd explained,
If you are going to keep your company together all year round and if you are going to be asking members of that company to commit for as much as three years, the summer will sustain them in Stratford. Where do they go in winter? London is the obvious place, where the largest audience is and where the demand is.18
Back to the Barbican?
3.2 Returning to the Barbican is not an option for the short to medium term. Michael Boyd, in an interview with the Guardian on 30 September 2003, revealed that Interim Managing Director, Vikki Heywood, had identified three possible venues for a permanent London RSC venue. The Barbican and the New London theatre were not on the short list.
3.3 In the negotiations that followed the RSC’s announcement to sever its 10-year deal with the Barbican, the Barbican gave assurances to the RSC that it would be entitled to a 12 week, rent free lease at the Barbican19. According to the Barbican, this offer still stands. However, the first available dates are in 2006, although there may be more flexibility with the smaller Pit Theatre.
3.4 The RSC is therefore looking to establish a new London base from Autumn 2004. This new base would definitely be in the centre of London and probably within the West End. As well as becoming frustrated at the Barbican’s location, the RSC also learnt from a run at the Camden Round House over the summer of 2002, that a central location is preferable.
3.5 Although the profile of audiences may have been younger, overall attendance was disappointing for the run at the Camden Round House. The substantial loss for the RSC, attributed to the need to build a new theatre and a shortage of run-in time to generate interest with a broad enough marketing campaign may also have been because of location. In future the RSC is keen not to “prejudice our audience, in either north, west, south or east London - that is, be in the middle.”20
The West End
3.6 The West End is the obvious first port of call. However, the West End, for all its convenience and glamour still represents a significant risk. Using the RSC’s own culinary analogy, “they are moving into a street with some very good restaurants.”21 The RSC pointed to the National Theatre and the Globe Theatre as significant competitors for Shakespeare and RSC audiences.
3.7 With the high costs that are inevitably incurred with large ensemble RSC productions, even sure-fire hits such as the much anticipated commercial run at
18 Ibid 19 Barbican Written Evidence, Appendix C 20 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 21 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003
7 Item 7a the Gielgud of All’s Well that Ends Well starring Judi Dench in 2004 is expected to only break even for its commercial producers. The financial losses incurred by commercial backed productions have led the RSC to conclude that “even sell out RSC shows will never make a profit for producers”22.
3.8 An RSC production for a commercial producer can be “moderately lucrative” but an unsuccessful visit could be “very expensive indeed” according to Richard Pulford of the Society of London Theatres who pointed out that
Leaving the RSC entirely on one side, out of every 10 productions that are brought into the West End from whatever source, only one returns a profit to its investors.23
3.9 However, Vikki Heywood, the interim Managing Director at the RSC, did also point out that, amidst the negative coverage that recent RSC West End transfers have attracted, it was “easy to forget that Les Miserables, has produced very large sums of money for the RSC.”24 The RSC see “absolutely no reason” why future West End transfers, “could not be making very reasonable sums of money for the RSC.”25 3.10 However the overall view of West End theatre economics supports the RSC’s conclusion that they can no longer rely on commercial producers as the only means that a London audience can enjoy RSC work. The RSC is looking therefore for a home that “we can call our own, where we can decide our own artistic policy and not have it decided by the vagaries of West End”26, a market place where the RSC do not consider themselves “appropriate constituents of a commercial beauty contest”27. 3.11 Although the RSC operating within the West End is, according to the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) “good for everybody”28 the RSC would still have to tackle a deficit of around £2.8 million and seek in some way to make it operate without generating such large losses. The RSC’s new approach 3.12 To tackle its £2.8 million deficit and to enable it to become more financially viable the RSC has largely abandoned the principles behind Project Fleet and shaped a new business model around the new artistic approach adopted by Michael Boyd. The RSC is looking to “make provision for carrying, prudently, [the] risks ourselves.”29 The RSC has already identified £1 million of savings this year and are looking to make similar, perhaps even larger, savings next year. 3.13 Creatively, the RSC’s core activity will remain ensemble productions with a company of around 40 actors that will move between Stratford, Newcastle and London. Central to this aspiration is to establish a London base that can operate in tandem with the work carried out in Stratford. 3.14 Supplementing this traditional model will be a new flexible approach to scheduling – a remaining legacy of Adrian Noble’s Project Fleet vision. For example, the RSC would be happy to “float off” successful productions to the
22 RSC Written Evidence, Appendix A 23 Oral Evidence 24 Vikki Heywood, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 25 Ibid 26 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 27 Ibid 28 Richard Pulford, SOLT, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 29 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003
8 Item 7a other venues in the commercial sector where the RSC could still enjoy a financial return. Les Miserables is the finest example to date of this approach. 3.15 The RSC would also be happy to put on plays that work around the diaries and commitments of high profile RSC actors such as Judi Dench, Alan Rickman and Ian McKellan, whose reputations were forged at the RSC. The RSC hopes to build into its pattern of work the possibility that, “at least once or twice a year, we are going to be able to do a production that can move very fluidly wherever it feels like, wherever the demand is.”30 3.16 The staging of one-off productions, free from the ensemble “wheel”, is important to the RSC business model. It affords the organization freedom to exploit popular productions and to plug into the opportunistic commercial sector more effectively. As SOLT pointed out, Commercial theatre operates on a somewhat opportunistic basis. One of the things that it finds most difficult because of the commercial pressures both on theatre buildings and on production investment is to make very long-term, advance commitments. 31 3.17 The RSC therefore hopes to operate within a West End economy that has become increasingly mixed. The Arts Council has signaled in various documents that it is interested in the mixing of these economies and Vikki Heywood pointed to her experience with the Royal Court where they produced work in West End theatres in both “a subsidised environment and sometimes with our commercial hats on.“32 There is no doubt that the world of the West End and the economy of the West End is getting chopped up in all sorts of different ways and I think part of the future for the RSC, whether it ends up in the West End or not, will certainly be as part of that mixed economy of work that is going on in London.33 3.18 In addition, the RSC is seeking “to identify new income sources and partners to support the presentation of the RSC’s work in London”34 through additional fundraising and a greater exploitation of its brand in the areas of merchandising and publishing, film and television. 3.19 The RSC is in negotiations now to secure a London venue and expect to announce an agreement in the New Year. Any such arrangement is unlikely to last more than three or four years, as Michael Boyd explains. We are engaged in researching a £100 million redevelopment in Stratford, until we know exactly what theatres we are going to be working with there, we cannot enter into probably a more than three-or-four-year relationship in London.35
30 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 31 Richard Pulford, SOLT, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 32 Ibid 33 Ibid 34 RSC Written Evidence, Appendix A 35 Michael Boyd, RSC, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003
9 Item 7a 4. My blessings go with thee The Arts Council funding for the RSC
4.1 The RSC’s principle source of funding is the Arts Council England. As can be seen in Table 1, the RSC will receive over £13 million of Arts Council funding over 2003/04 (a subsidy which will rise by 5.5% over the next two years). This is the fifth largest subsidy allocated by the Arts Council and is more than the combined subsidy granted to 17 London theatres (excluding the National Theatre)36 and 36 London based touring theatre companies37.
Table 1: Arts Council England Subsidy – Regular Funding (all £1 million plus grants) 2003/04
Regional Arts Amount (£) Company Board Royal Opera House London 21,748,450 South Bank Centre London 16,601,012 English National Opera London 15,000,000 Royal National Theatre London 14,810,852 RSC West Midlands 13,270,937 Other major London Theatres (15) London 10,211,838 London Based Touring Companies (36) London 7,016,795 English National Ballet London 5,325,338 The Sage, Gateshead North East 2,207,989 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra South West 2,085,500 Royal Court Theatre London 1,816,398 City of Brimingham Orchestra West Midlands 1,737,435 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society North West 1,718,092 Halle Concerts Society North West 1,718,090 London Symphony Orchestra London 1,660,000 London Philharmonic Orchestra London 1,618,362 Philharmonia Orchestra London 1,618,362 Sadler’s Wells London 1,530, 320 Leicester Haymarket East Midlands 1,361,860 Liverpool Everyman/Playhouse North West 1,350,000 West Yorkshire Playhouse Yorkshire 1,345,900 Nottingham Playhouse East Midlands 1,200,500 Northern Stage North East 1,124,595 Glyndebourne Touring Opera South East 1,080,747 Theatre Royal Plymouth South West 1,058,920 English Touring Opera London 1,055,227 Bristol Old Vic South West 1,042,190
4.2 The Barbican claimed in its submission that £1.8 million of this Arts Council grant is allocated specifically to fund London showings of the RSC’s work. The Arts Council in its oral evidence to the Committee pointed out that:
36 Spending Plan for regularly funded organisations, 2003-06, London, July 2003 37 Spending Plan for regularly funded organisations, 2003-06, London, July 2003
10 Item 7a There was a notional figure in 1997 of £1.8 million that was used during discussions between the Arts Council and the Corporation of London about the RSC’s revenues in bulk. It was a figure that was notional but appropriate then.38
4.3 The Arts Council England does not explicitly attribute funding to a presence in London. However, it regards the RSC’s presence in London as part of the RSC’s core activity, which is to be “a classical theatre company of the highest quality”39 that tours productions in England.
4.4 The Arts Council made it clear in its evidence to the Committee that “it is up to the [grant] recipients to allocate that subsidy as they feel it is most effective for the programme of work over the period of time over which they are according it.”40 However the Arts Council also admit that by not having a permanent RSC presence in London throughout the winter, the RSC is failing in its duty to perform their core activities.
We have come to an agreement this year that, as a one-off measure, that a regular presence in London is not in the best interests of the RSC… as it focuses on its core functions and as Michael (Boyd) has time to develop his policies. But we are all very clear, and we have negotiated, that a London presence is part of [the RSC’s] grant. 41
4.5 The Arts Council views its role as a partner agency and as a “sounding board”42 to the RSC. The Arts Council was consulted with over the RSC’s decision to leave the Barbican and, as stated previously, publicly supported the RSC in this decision, despite concerns.
4.6 The Arts Council continues to advise and support the RSC as it explores its options. The Arts Council and the RSC’s new management are in constant dialogue over the future options that the RSC is exploring. The Arts Council is also clear that the “current model that the RSC is putting forward is a national model and that includes London and we have no reason to debate that with them at all.”43 There is no reason, for now, to consider that the current level of Arts Council funding is under threat.
4.7 However, there is a time limit on this support. As a spokesman for the RSC said: “We've made a pledge to the audiences and the Arts Council to find a London home next year. If we fail then the trial can begin.”44
4.8 We fully support the RSC in its pursuit of a London base and share its expectation that this will be achieved well in advance of October 2004.
The Committee expects the Arts Council, as a provider of £13 million of public money to the RSC, to assist the RSC in achieving this aim thus ensuring that the conditions of its grant are met by the RSC.
38 Nicola Thorold, Arts Council England, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 39 Arts Council England, Written Evidence, Appendix B 40 Nicola Thorold, Arts Council England, Evidentiary Hearing, November 12th, 2003 41 Ibid 42 Ibid 43 Ibid 44 The Observer, November 16th
11 Item 7a Appendix A: RSC Written Evidence
These notes are designed to provide background to the London Assembly Culture Committee in support of a meeting on 12 November 2003.
Timeline The Royal Shakespeare Company was born out of a tradition stretching back to the nineteenth century of presenting Shakespeare’s work for a summer season in Stratford- upon-Avon.
1960 Peter Hall and Peter Brook formed the modern RSC as a radical theatre company re-examining Shakespeare as our contemporary and presenting his plays alongside modern playwrights.
At the heart of their vision was the creation of a repertoire ensemble company, developing of a full-year operation rather than a summer-only season. Presenting the RSC’s work in London was also an important part of the strategy, and the Company secured the Aldwych theatre on long- term rent from 1960. The Aldwych housed RSC productions throughout the year - a combination of Stratford transfers and plays specifically commissioned for London.
Over time, the Aldwych was not able to meet the considerable technical requirements of a repertoire system (where one company of actors play a number of different plays over a season).
1977 As the RSC expanded its role in presenting new work, the Company added The Warehouse (now the Donmar Warehouse) to its London operations in 1977 – transferring plays from The Other Place in Stratford, as well as staging new commissions.
1982 The complexity of a split operation between the Aldwych and the Donmar was always difficult and costly to manage. The RSC increasingly felt the need to mount its work in London under one roof, and so in 1982 accepted the invitation to become the resident theatre company at the Barbican.
1986 Swan theatre opens in Stratford.
1991 Adrian Noble becomes Chief Executive and Artistic Director.
With Adrian Noble as Chief Executive and Artistic Director, the RSC expanded its regional touring programme and further developed its annual residency in Newcastle and innovative mobile tour to community and leisure centres. The aim was to ensure that everyone in the country was no more than a 90-minute drive from an RSC production at some point in the year. 1997 However as a result, the Company struggled to meet the commitments of London and so in 1997 reduced the length of the Barbican season from 12 to six months.
April 2001 Adrian Noble launches a major change in the RSC’s operating model designed to refocus the Company’s work, removing the perceived constraints of the repertoire ensemble system and allowing productions
12 Item 7a to find their appropriate performance spaces. This included a change in its relationship with the Barbican.
The RSC’s management agreement with the Barbican came up for renewal in May 2002 and the Company decided to terminate the agreement and instead present its work in a variety of London theatres – choosing the theatre that best suited each play. In short, fixed-term runs, bringing to an end the ensemble of actors and the repertoire system.
May 2002 RSC end their residency as the Barbican’s resident theatre company.
April 2003 Michael Boyd succeeds Adrian, recommitting the Company to its founding principles - including the return to an ensemble company, the return of a repertoire system and the importance of an identifiable London home for the RSC.
October 2003 Michael Boyd launches 2004 Festival Season, new ensemble, and intention to secure a new London home.
RSC productions presented in London since May 2002
April to July RSC present three of Shakespeare’s late plays at the Roundhouse, 2002 Camden. RSC attracts audience 20 years younger than Stratford.
July to Sept RSC present double-bill at the Theatre Royal Haymarket plays to 2002 strong audiences.
Dec to Mar Thelma Holt and Bill Kenwright present the Olivier-award winning 2002/3 Jacobean season of five plays, transferred from the Swan.
Jan to Feb RSC present Midnight’s Children at the Barbican – world premiere 2003 prior to worldwide tour.
May to Aug Theatre Royal Haymarket and Stanhope Productions present Ralph 2003 Fiennes in Ibsen’s Brand at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Jun to Aug Duncan Weldon and Triumph Entertainment present Coriolanus and 2003 The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Old Vic.
Jul to Aug RSC present Pericles with Cardboard Citizens at a warehouse in 2003 Southwark.
Feb to April The Company's next performance in London will be All's Well That 2004 Ends Well at the Gielgud Theatre staring Judi Dench. The production transfers from a Winter Season at the Swan and is presented in London by Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt.
Why did the RSC change its relationship with the Barbican? While the main theatre was loved by some of our audiences, others were put off by the Barbican’s separateness from restaurants, bars and the general ‘buzz’ associated with a night out at the theatre. The RSC had developed a very loyal, but insufficiently large audience at the Barbican that was declining year-on-year. At the same time, many actors, director and designers did not enjoy playing at the Barbican and working in its
13 Item 7a subterranean offices, rehearsal and backstage areas, some choosing not to work with the Company as a result.
The RSC’s commitment to 22 performing weeks a year at the Barbican had been a constraint on both the RSC’s planning and the Barbican management’s freedom to choose its own schedule. Transfers from the RSC’s 430-seat Swan theatre in Stratford to the Barbican’s 180-seat Pit theatre never provided a satisfactory or economically viable solution for the Company. The Pit was designed originally as a rehearsal room and never met the demands of RSC productions devised for bigger stages in Stratford.
What subsidy did the RSC receive for performing at the Barbican? The RSC received around £3 million a year from the Corporation of London to support its work in the Barbican, just under £1 million of which was earmarked as a ‘programme grant’ to support the origination of productions in Stratford. The RSC had been informed by the Corporation that subsidy to the Company was likely to be reduced by £750,000 at the renewal of the RSC management agreement with the Barbican in May 2002.
To compensate for this loss in subsidy, the RSC had created a new financial model which anticipated replacing the income from the Corporation with new streams of income from fundraising and the development of RSC Enterprise, a new company exploiting the RSC’s work in other media.
Where has the RSC performed in London since it left the Barbican? Even during its residency at the Barbican, the RSC had performed in a range of London theatres – either using its subsidy to present work or working with partners on commercial transfers. For example, the Young Vic theatre has provided a welcome home for many Swan transfers.
Immediately following the final Barbican season in Spring/Summer 2002, the RSC presented a season of Shakespeare’s late plays at the Roundhouse in Camden. While the RSC managed to radically change the age profile of its audience (on average 20 years younger than audiences in Stratford-upon-Avon) audience figures matched London averages (at around 50 per cent) but failed to match the RSC’s box office projections. The problems with this season were a significant contributor to the current £2.8 million deficit.
In the Summer of 2002, the RSC transferred two Shakespeare productions from Stratford to the Theatre Royal Haymarket, using its subsidy to present its work at the theatre. The pairing played to good audiences (over 75 per cent capacity) and managed to attract a wider audience than at had in the Barbican – with ‘walk up’ business exceeding planned expectations.
Even before Michael Boyd took up his post in April 2003, it had become clear to the Board that the policy of presenting work in a variety of London venues using RSC subsidy could not be sustained. The availability of appropriate London theatres was more difficult than anticipated and the planning horizons of West End theatre owners and producers were often out of sync with the RSC’s. Existing RSC audiences were confused by the irregular performance pattern in London and new income streams from endowment and enterprise activity failed to materialise as anticipated.
Since leaving the Barbican, the RSC had enjoyed a successful track record of partnership with commercial producers, with the Olivier Award-winning ‘Jacobean’ season at the Gielgud in 2002-3 (supported by Thelma Holt and Bill Kenwright), Coriolanus and The
14 Item 7a Merry Wives of Windsor at the Old Vic (presented by Duncan Weldon and Triumph Productions) and Brand at the Haymarket (presented by the Theatre Royal Haymarket and Stanhope Productions).
In January 2003, the RSC returned to the Barbican theatre for five weeks with the world premiere of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. The RSC welcomes the opportunity to return to the Barbican in the future with appropriate projects and new commissions, like Midnight’s Children. Michael Boyd, in his first few months as Artistic Director, has opened a constructive dialogue with the Barbican Artistic Director, Graham Sheffield, about future joint projects.
The RSC decided in spring 2003 that it would be unable to enter into the further financial risk involved to support the presentation of the Festival Season in London. Despite negotiations with a number of commercial producers, the RSC has been unable to secure a London life for the 2003 Festival Season productions. Due to the current, more cautious mood of the commercial theatre in London, independent producers have been less willing than ever before to take classical work (however acclaimed) into a commercial venue.
What is the RSC’s current policy on London? Since taking up post in April 2003, Michael Boyd has launched plans to refocus the RSC around an ensemble Company and recommitted the RSC to finding a London home. At the 2004 season announcement in October 2003, Boyd put this vision into action introducing a dedicated ‘core’ ensemble at the heart of the RSC with a significant increase in the usual rehearsal time. It is hoped that the 2004 Festival Season will transfer to London in autumn 2004. Boyd and the newly appointed Interim Managing Director, Vikki Heywood, have already opened negotiations with London theatre owners.
Through a range of new financial controls, the Company now has the deficit in check and hopes to clear it completely in the next four years. Sustainable financial management is already showing results, with savings of over £1 million already earmarked for this year.
It has also become clear that an artistic policy driven around an ensemble of actors cannot be sustained around the principle of some productions being cherry-picked for their commercial potential. Because of the large casts, musicians and technical requirements involved in running a repertoire, even sell out RSC shows will never make a profit for producers. Even the solo run of All’s Well with Judi Dench is only expected to break even next year. This means we need to identify new income sources and partners to support the presentation of the RSC’s work in London.
15 Item 7a Appendix B: Arts Council England’s Written Submission
November 2003
Arts Council England Theatre funding
The Arts Council invests over £100 million a year of grant-in-aid money on theatre in this country. In 2003/04, around a third of that funding (£35 million) goes to the Arts Council’s portfolio of regularly funded organisations based in London. This does not include lottery money or one-off project funds.
The Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is the largest theatre company outside London, and is funded by the Arts Council to enable the organisation to be a classical theatre company of the highest quality and to tour productions in England. The RSC receives Arts Council grant-in-aid funding of £13,270,937 in 2003/04 for its activities in Stratford-upon-Avon and the regions of England. This figure will rise to £14 million in 05/06; a 5.5% increase on the current year.
The Arts Council’s funding agreement with the RSC does not make a specific requirement that the company performs in London, as this is considered core activity, neither is there any funding ring-fenced for performances in the capital. This is in keeping with all Arts Council funding policy, where core activity does not have particular funds ring fenced for it.
National activity
As a national company, the RSC is committed to providing access to classical drama to audiences across the country. It fulfills this commitment through a regular presence in London and Newcastle and by visiting other UK cities.
In 2002, the RSC board took the decision to withdraw from its management role at the Barbican and change the existing performance arrangements. The Arts Council agreed with the RSC that the traditional model of rehearsal, production and tour to London was compromising the artistic strength of the company and that the company should examine other models for a London presence. The Arts Council continues to advise and support the company as it explores its options and will rigorously examine the new business plan when it is complete.
Shakespeare in London
It is not possible to give an exact figure for Arts Council funding of Shakespeare in London, but a large number of recent and current productions have received direct or indirect public funding. From the National Theatre’s Henry V to The Tempest at the Old Vic, many productions have their origins in the subsidised sector, as classical theatre is often expensive, due to its large scale and high production values. The RSC’s absence from a permanent London home in 2003 will leave a gap, but there are still opportunities for audiences to see high quality productions in the capital.
16 Item 7a Appendix C: Barbican’s Written Submission
These notes inevitably refer to the relationship as it existed under the RSC's last management team of Adrian Noble and Chris Foy. We feel that we have the beginnings of a constructive dialogue with the new team. This is in its embryonic stages, but we appreciate that there are many priorities within the RSC at the moment. Having said this, it would be very helpful to the Barbican - and potentially to the provision of RSC performances for London audiences - for this to move forward with clarity. 1. The Barbican Theatre was built by the Corporation of London to be compatible with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. It was designed in full cooperation with the RSC, to their specifications. From previous discussions, we are aware that some £1.8million of the Arts Council's grant to the RSC has historically been contingent on their London presence.
2. When the RSC decided to withdraw from a full time presence at the Barbican and appear for 6 months only each year- decision taken in 1995 - there was no prior discussion with the Barbican Centre.
3. When the Barbican Centre proposed informal discussions about artistic policy with the RSC in 1997, with a view to maximising the benefits of the relationship by potentially taking it to a new level the RSC declined to take part.
4. When the RSC was "considering its future" and a "new artistic model" in 2000/01, at no stage was the Barbican offered a part in any discussions.
5. The RSC's decision to withdraw from the Barbican altogether, announced in 2001, was taken without warning or prior artistic discussion
6. During subsequent negotiations over the terms under which the RSC surrendered the unexpired portion of its lease in the theatre, the RSC asked for assurances that in future, they could have up to 12 weeks in the Barbican, each year, rent free. The Barbican gave these assurances.
7. With the exception of the RSC's production of "Midnight's Children" in 2002, they have neither used the theatre nor included its use in future plans. There have been discussions which have led the Barbican to hold various dates for unconfirmed projects. However, in all cases the RSC has allowed these dates to lapse.
8. Over the years the RSC had built up its own core “Barbican” audience from across London and the home counties. Our experience shows that their productions at the Barbican would remain an attractive proposition to audiences - “Midnight’s Children” exceeded the RSC’s expectation by a considerable margin. In addition, the RSC could tap into the already rich, diverse and younger audience base steadily built by the Barbican’s own theatre programme.
9. The Barbican's offer of a twelve week season by the RSC in the theatre, rent free to the company, still stands and will continue to do so. We look forward to starting this discussion with the new management team as soon as it is feasible for them.
Appendix D: Michael Billington’s submission, Guardian Theatre Critic
17 Item 7a
1. How did it happen there is no RSC season in London?
This is a direct result of the ill-conceived Project Fleet concocted by Adrian Noble and Chris Foy. This involved withdrawl from the Barbican with the RSC adopting a peripatetic approach to London seasons. What many of us predicted soon happened. Without a permanent London base, the RSC lost its sense of metropolitan identity and had to confront the harsh economic realities of commercial theatre. The RSC did seasons at the Round House, the Haymarket, the Gielgud and the Old Vic which were either poorly attended or lost money: sometimes both. Having been generously subsidised by the City of London at the Barbican, the RSC woke up to the fact that Shakespeare in London is rarely a commercial proposition. And, having got their fingers badly burned over recent temporary seasons, even the most sympathetic commercial producers (such as Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt) could not find a way of importing part or whole of the 2003 Stratford season. But the blame lies with the previous Noble- Foy RSC team rather than the new Michael Boyd-Vikki Heywood directorate.
2. How important is it that London hosts RSC productions?
It is vital. Without a continuing RSC prescence, the capital faces the prospect of six months a year with very little Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Globe and the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park fill the summer months. But this winter all one gets in London is random Shakespeare productions: a very good Pericles in Hammersmith and two slightly eccentric versions of Romeo and Juliet at the Arts and the Young Vic. I teach American students in London and it seems absurd that this autumn and winter there is hardly any Shakespeare to which I can take them. This is also a crucial deprivation for local students as well as tourists and London theatregoers. Without an RSC presence in the capital, the National Theatre (while doing excellent work) enjoys an unhealthy dominance. What one also misses is the RSC's ability to connect Shakespeare to contemporary drama: the whole raison d'etre for Peter Hall's establishment of a London base at the Aldwych in 1960.
3. How will a similar situation be avoided in future?
By the RSC putting down roots in a central London theatre on favourable economic terms. But the company must have a home in the capital. Adrian Noble frequently said it was a 19th century idea for a company to establish its identity through a particular building. That was arrant nonsense. It is precisely through buildings that companies achieve permanence, continuity, a fixed identity. Audiences like to know where they can find the RSC. A building also enables a company to do all kinds of extra-curricular activity- workshops, lectures, talks, demonstrations, open rehearsals etc- to complement the production of plays. I am confident that Michael Boyd realises the vital importance of all this.
4. Does this have broader implications for the viability of Shakespeare productions in London- are public subsidies needed?
This is a difficult question. In fact, the RSC was subsidised by the City of London to perform at the Barbican. It then wantonly sacrificed that money. Whether it is now entitled to extra subsidy to meet the costs of performing in London is hard to answer: I would tentatively say "yes" if it enabled the RSC to achieve its long-term aim of re- establishing itself in the capital. Historically, the RSC has always lagged behind the National Theatre in terms of Arts Council subsidy although its output has usually been larger. If extra subsidy were needed to reaffirm its London presence, I would support that. On the larger question, I think public money should be used to support existing
18 Item 7a Shakespeare-producing organisations rather than establishing new ones. In other words, there is a case for helping the RSC, Shakespeare's Globe, the Open-Air Theatre and possibly the Old Vic depending on its plans. But I see little case for trying to set up any new Shakespeare-producing company or for supporting commercially-originated work.
19 Item 7a Appendix E - Transcript
Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee
12 November 2003
Meg Hillier (Chair): I would like to welcome you all here today. We are questioning the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the Arts Council and the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) about the fact that the RSC is going to have no London season this year.
We are well briefed and I hope you will not be put off if we are brisk in our questions and answers. That is the way we like to do business here.
Could I perhaps kick off picking up on news, and I do not know whether this should be addressed to Michael (Boyd) or Vikki (Heywood), from the papers this weekend about the news that Lord Alexander has resigned. Could you just make a comment briefly about that and does that have any connection with the issue today?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: No, Bob (Lord Alexander) has come to the end of what was always regarded as a one-term gig. He is the first Chairman of the new model board. The board of the RSC is quite a young board. It emerged out of the 70-strong board of governors just over three years ago as part of the beginning of a whole and quite traumatic modernisation process for the RSC to develop a professional, 15-strong executive board to govern the RSC. He was head of the development campaign before that. He has been associated with the RSC for a long time. There is always a very special relationship between the artistic director and the Chairman that appointed him. I am very sorry to see him make the decision that he will go but he is not going until we have, in post, his successor. It is not in any way associated with either redevelopment in Stratford or our search for a new London home. It is for his own reasons.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): Could you just outline for us how it came to pass that your Stratford season was unable to secure a London venue this winter?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Well, first of all I would like to put a caveat on that, which is, at the moment, if we look at the possibility of booking Shakespeare in London this winter, the only thing that is on the cards that you can book for is our production of All’s Well That Ends Well with Judi Dench. So, it is not as though we are not in London. In terms of the Stratford Summer Festival season this year, it is now beginning to look likely that some of that season will be able to transfer to London.
We came to a point where it hit the press, which was a point where, as a responsible employer, we were not able to take up options that we had on the actors. There was a deadline that we wanted to respect for their lives and ours. At that point we had not managed to secure partners in London and we are now optimistic that some of our work from the Summer Festival season will be able to come to London. We are working and we are doing our best to make sure that all that does come together.
The background to your question is that the events of the last three years have meant that, with a £2.8 million deficit, we felt this year and the Board was very clear, and indeed I was very clear, that we were not in a position to expose ourselves to a speculative risk in London this year. Therefore, we would be continuing the practice of the last two-or-so years where productions moving into London would be in partnership with, for the most part, commercial London theatre producers who were prepared to
20 Item 7a underwrite the risk on our London visits. So far, we have been really remarkably successful in transferring our work on this basis with no risks to the Royal Shakespeare Company. We have been able to bring Ralph Fiennes in Brand, a wonderful production, to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. We had a very successful run with Much Ado About Nothing and Antony and Cleopatra, also at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. We have secured the run of Judi Dench in All’s Well That Ends Well directed by Greg Doran. We have brought Coriolanus and Merry Wives to the Old Vic on this basis. I think, we have reasonably that at the beginning of this year we would bring a reasonable proportion of our work to London this year.
The West End has had quite a hard time of it this year and we found, as push came to shove, that there were very few commercial producers who had enough in their coffers, enough confidence in the London theatre scene, to expose themselves to a risk. But, we have kept on chipping away, and we do believe in the work that we produce, and I think we will be able to bring something, even on that basis from this season. There is an important point of principle, which, I think, does make clear this year that the Royal Shakespeare Company is not, should not be in the business of presenting itself as a commercial proposition anywhere – in London or Stratford or wherever. It may be that as a by-product of our work there might be a particularly brilliant, small cast production of Shakespeare or maybe the next Educating Rita with a very small cast that has a broad appeal. Then, of course, it makes sense for the company to make a bob or two on the back of an exploitation of something that we produce that proves to have legs.
But, fundamentally, in Stratford, in Newcastle and in London, we are about bringing an added value to the process of bringing Shakespeare to the stage. I do think that in the past decade or so that added value that the RSC brings has gone a bit blurry around the edges. I think now we are quite clear that in common, very consistent with our founding principles, we are here to actually bring actors into a process that is unique in the UK and indeed probably throughout the world in terms of a deepening of their training; a collective experience over a long period of time, that allows them to explore work in a way that no other theatre company can; that is ground-breaking not just in terms of Shakespeare production but, therefore, in terms of theatre production in general. Also that we are a company that can paint on a much broader canvas than is possible or even appropriate for other comparable or smaller theatre companies to do, precisely because of the historic nature of a long-term commitment, the big “ask” that we are making of artists. That is just as important for London as it is for Stratford.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): It is a fact, is it not, that on the whole that Shakespeare productions are not ever put on without risk?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes, we realise that we are not appropriate constituents of a commercial beauty contest, but within our own economy we need to make provision for carrying, prudently, those risks ourselves. Therefore, enabling ourselves to be cutting edge in our productions of Shakespeare work rather than, for instance, always star-dependent.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): So, in a sense, by cutting yourselves loose from the Barbican you were, therefore, exposing yourselves to this problem of risk, which in a sense did not exist when you had your nice, little, cosy nest, if I can put it that way.
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes, that is absolutely right and the re-grouping that we are working on within the plan of now is to start building an alternative nest, although not necessarily a cosy one, but at least a nest, a home that we can call our own where we can be our own chief editors; where we can decide our own artistic policy and not have it decided by the vagaries or the atmosphere of the West End.
21 Item 7a
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): You also mentioned that one of the problems you were encountering in terms of getting a season in London was the actual actors themselves and their deadlines. You now say that you think you may have actually sorted that and you may actually be able to bring a limited season to London. Can you just quickly tell us what you think you might be able to do for London?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes, we have released the actors from their option because it was the responsible thing to do. But, we are still pursuing options and I would be quietly confident, it is not something that I want to announce at this meeting or anything, but, I would be quietly confident that we will be securing the transfer of some of our season to London.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): The Barbican obviously had an offer of a 12-week, rent- free run to give London a chance. Why was that not taken up?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: The first available Barbican dates are in 2006 so they are not part of either a short term or a long term. There may be some more flexibility in terms of the Barbican, as I understand it through conversations with Graham Sheffield and Louise (Jeffreys). There may be more flexibility in the Pit Theatre for small-scale and experimental and new work and we have talked about the possibilities there. But, in terms of either short or mid-term solutions to our search for a London home, just to clarify the issue, I asked Graham (Sheffield) to send me a list of the available dates and there are two week’s availability on the main stage in 2005, which are not really any use to a company the size of the RSC, and the nearest available dates are in 2006.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): Can I just finally ask Richard Pulford, what are your thoughts on the possibility of a commercially-backed run for the RSC season? Do you think there are any possibilities in London?
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: I think the first thing to say is that, to an extent, commercial theatre operates on a somewhat opportunistic basis. One of the things that it finds most difficult because of the commercial pressures both on theatre buildings and on production investment is to make very long-term, advance commitments. So, it is a rash person who would say, ‘Yes, there will be such-and-such a theatre available within six months, let us say, from now for such-and-such a purpose’. It is a problem that even the commercial sector itself faces and it is no easier when dealing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I think the broad position must be that, as a general principle, the West End always welcomes the presence of the RSC. It is a very distinguished company and to have them operating within the West End is good for everybody. It is good for London theatre as a whole and that in turn is good for everybody else.
But, I think, at the same time, as the RSC’s written evidence says here, bringing the RSC into a London theatre is an expensive business. It is expensive partly because of the climate of the company itself and because simply running in a West End theatre is a comparatively expensive thing to do. As long as the RSC is not in a position to take its own risk, the question always is, can an independent producer or producers, perhaps a clutch of producers, be found who are willing, in all the circumstances, to take on the risk of a particular production or productions? That is a judgement that they will not make in the abstract. They can only make such a judgement in relation to a particular case, bearing in mind, not only precisely what the RSC has to offer, but what the other offer in London is at the time.
22 Item 7a A very successful visit to London by the RSC can be fairly lucrative, moderately lucrative, I would not put it further than that, for an independent producer. An unsuccessful visit could be very expensive indeed. This has to be judged against the background, of which, leaving the RSC entirely on one side, out of every 10 productions that are brought into the West End from whatever source, only one returns a profit to its investors. So, already there is a very strong commercial presumption against doing almost any show in London. In some ways it is amazing that the West End economy survives that kind of underlying financial basis. But I think it does just emphasise the very real difficulty there can be, with all the good will in the world, in bringing in a show which is comparatively expensive, unless one can have very considerable confidence that it is going to survive and indeed make money for the investors. It is their money, after all, which is being placed at risk.
Angie Bray, (Deputy Chair): You are not saying it was always going to be impossible? You are saying it was always going to be very difficult?
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: It is always going to be difficult. It has never been anything other than difficult to put on the RSC, or indeed anybody else, as I explained, in the West End on a commercial basis.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): Does that not flag up the problem with the decision, perhaps, to part company with the Barbican because it appears all the trouble seems to stem from the time when the RSC depended on the commercially-backed sector?
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: You are asking me a question to which I cannot give an answer because I represent both the Barbican and the RSC.
Angie Bray (Deputy Chair): From everything we have heard it seems that you set yourselves a really, virtually impossible task once you no longer had the comfort of the Barbican behind you?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes, it is a tricky task, which we do not underestimate. Richard (Pulford) wrote a very good report analysing, for the Arts Council, the pros and cons of the situation. I was not running the company when we left the Barbican, at the time that we left the Barbican and in the way that we left the Barbican. With the glorious benefit of hindsight, if you were to wind back the clock, of course, you would feed that hindsight into the actions that you would take on. But, the fact is we have left the Barbican. There are no dates available at the Barbican till 2006. I think we need to act now, to be visibly securing a regular peg to hang our hat on for the public of London as of next year. My particular target is for the company that is working under the new and, I think, very exciting model of operation, which goes into rehearsals in three week’s time preparing the next Stratford Summer Festival season of tragedies and the new work festival, that they will have a home to go to in the autumn of 2004. That is what Vikki (Heywood) and I are working on just now.
Every incremental move that we can make in addition to that will come as a bonus in a sense. It has consistently been a problem ever since Peter Hall came and founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and said the Royal Shakespeare Company has got to add more to the process of putting on shows here than has been the case at the moment. He felt that the Shakespeare Memorial season in Stratford was really rather moribund, almost end-of-the-pier, hire-and-fire Shakespeare. What the Royal Shakespeare Company could achieve was a more sustained commitment, leading to a much more profound enquiry into the work of Shakespeare allied with an exploration of new work alongside that.
23 Item 7a
That meant London because if you are going to keep your company, it certainly meant that for him at that time. If you are going to keep your company together all year round and if you are going to be asking members of that company to commit for as much as three years, the summer will sustain them in Stratford. Where do they go in winter? London is the obvious place, where the largest audience is and where the demand is. Ever since he did that, he sought to move into London and various theatres were looked at. They ended up at the Aldwych. There were outcries on both sides of the argument. One was that the RSC would never survive in the harsh environment of the West End of London and two was that the RSC were providing unfair competition in London because it was a subsidised company operating in a commercial environment. Binky Beaumont, the famous West End producer at the time, resigned from the Board of Governors of the RSC over the issue. Yet it was a great success.
We are not coming into the same climate now. I am very aware of that. We are moving into a street where there are already some very good restaurants, not least the National Theatre, of course, which was only a gleam in the eye at that time, although already a very competitive gleam in the eye in terms of Arts Council funding. There was no Globe, which is a very successful site-specific production company, not a million miles away from here. I am of the view that it is a benefit to us that the RSC has, if you like, succeeded in its historical task of securing Shakespeare’s place in the popular repertoire and that Shakespeare production is more prevalent now than when Peter (Hall) founded the company.
But, we do find ourselves in the situation where, if we are to be successful in a dynamic and exciting return to London, we are not only going to have to have a very clear idea of what we do, but we are also going to have to ensure that it is complementary, rather than clashing with the existing Shakespeare work that does happen in London.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Maybe we could pick up on this more when we talk about funding, but I wanted to turn if I could to the Arts Council. Thank you Hilary (Carty) and Nicola (Thorold) for coming along. Now, we had some evidence from the Barbican that they understood that a proportion of the £13 million or so that the Arts Council fund the RSC, about £1.8 million was earmarked specifically for touring work and some of that is contingent on working in London. I wonder if you could clarify if there is a breakdown within that £13 million?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: Yes, I can clarify it. There was a notional figure, as I understand it, in 1997 of £1.8 million that was used during discussions between the Arts Council and the Corporation of London about the RSC’s revenues in bulk. It was a figure that was notional but appropriate then. However, I think that we as a funds body have moved on from that time. We do not earmark our funds for the RSC’s presence in London because as a national organisation we believe that the RSC should have a presence in London and it is not our policy to ring fence amounts of money for core activities. It is up to the recipients to allocate that subsidy as they feel it is most effective for the programme of work over the period of time over which they are according it.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Implicit, in a way, in what you are saying is the whole £13 million is contingent on having a presence in London.
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: It is part of the national remit of the RSC. We have come to an agreement this year that, as a one-off measure, that a regular presence in London is not in the best interests of the RSC as it stabilises in this year, as it focuses on its core functions and as Michael (Boyd) has time
24 Item 7a to develop his policies. But we are all very clear, and we have negotiated that, that a London presence is part of that grant.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, and your own evidence highlights that there is a gap now in London and you are obviously not happy about that, but you have agreed it as a one- off. Is that a fair summary? What did you do to try to prevent the fact that there is no RSC London season this year?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: Well, I would turn it the other way round. As Michael has described there is quite a lot of RSC product in London during this year. It is just not in the traditional model of bringing the festival season to London. There is quite a lot of other Shakespeare that has occurred this year, as we are all aware. There has not been a lack of Shakespeare in London. Perhaps some organisations have moved in on the fact that there is no RSC, but just in the last few months we have has the National doing Henry V. We have had the Lyric, Hammersmith doing Pericles. We have seen some very high-quality productions of Shakespeare and indeed, the Sheffield Theatre bringing Derek Jacobi and The Tempest to the Old Vic. That was a popular production when it started.
Meg Hillier (Chair): So, how much of that had been planned by The Arts Council to help import alternative Shakespeare and small-scale Shakespeare?
Hilary Carty, Director of Performing, Arts Council London: I think it is fair to say that in discussions with the organisations that we fund we do have a fair measure of advance notice of what is on the table, and what is likely to be on the table. So, part of the discussion with the RSC about whether or not their absence in this particular season was going to mean a complete blanket of Shakespeare would mean looking at what else is there. As Nicola has just outlined, there is a sufficient proportion of Shakespeare that London audiences will have access to. It is not all by the RSC, but it is also not all on a small-scale or alternative productions. So, we were quite satisfied that there would be Shakespeare in London. So, we believe that for companies producing the work there would also be audiences.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Just to touch on audiences briefly, clearly Shakespeare has a role, not just for domestic audiences but a very important role in London’s tourism. It does seem tricky that if an American tourist wants to see Shakespeare they would not just, just go to the Barbican and see the RSC. How is the Arts Council or indeed any other body … how do you think that is being handled that there is information for potential Shakespearian audiences, to find out where the different productions are on show because it is a bit piecemeal and some of the venues that are showing it are not mainstream for an outside tourist?
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: I remarked earlier on the somewhat opportunistic basis on which commercial theatre operates. A commercial owner may not know very far in advance when a particular Shakespeare production is coming to their theatre and a particular producer or intending producer may not know very far in advance which theatre he is going to be able to put it in, if any. But, I do not think anybody coming to London from abroad would expect that, nor find that there was no Shakespeare.
In the last two years there have been 28 productions of 17 Shakespeare plays in London. It is quite a lot. That includes, if I can put it in this context, only four by the RSC and the remaining 24 were in one way or another – there were some that were not commercial, some in subsidised venues – but the majority of them in one way or another were in venues not relying on subsidy. So, there has been a very considerable
25 Item 7a range of Shakespeare on offer and I do not count, for example, things like Rose Rage, which was a very fine compilation piece all of which was based on Shakespeare’s text, nor indeed, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet which was recently at the Arts Education. I am talking about, what I call mainstream productions of Shakespeare. There has been a good deal in London over this two-year period. I cannot say whether or not there would have been more or less had the RSC been doing more. I simply do not know the answer to that question. It is not an economy where one can make that kind of judgement.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Well, my key question was really about how the information gets out there. You highlighted one of the difficulties of short-term planning.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: We provide information obviously as comprehensively as we can as a society right across the world about what is on at the time and to a lesser extent what is coming on in London theatre. The only problem is that I cannot tell you now that even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be running in March because nobody knows. If the audience figures and the advance booking fall off a cliff at the end of February it will not be, but will it? Who knows?
That is the great problem that we have, which is why, as I say, I have referred before to the somewhat opportunistic nature of planning for London theatre, the commercial theatre. Companies like the Donmar, which has done some Shakespeare in the last couple of years, and obviously with the Globe, although not in receipt of revenue subsidy because it is totally committed to Shakespeare, well, almost entirely Shakespeare, have quite a long planning horizon. It is totally in control of its own venue and it is in a very different position from a producer coming into a West End theatre. In those cases you can be reasonably confident what is going to happen within 12 months. But in the West End theatre it is hard. The best you can say is say what is on now and you can give people such information as you have about people’s plans to put on other productions, but that is about as far as it goes.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Perhaps we can go back and ask the Arts Council about the benefit of having the RSC in a particular place because it is easy for people to know if they go there they will see Shakespeare. Do you feel you have a responsibility as the major arts funder to try to get information coherently available to people? Do you work with the Visit London people?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: I think the Society of London Theatres provide an excellent service. And their website is an extremely useful way of finding things out. I do not think it would be the best use of our resources …
Meg Hillier (Chair): So you are satisfied that. Just before we move on can I ask you to clarify what you have done to prevent the RSC moving from the Barbican? Would you like them to go back to the Barbican? Would you rather that they had not left the Barbican?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: I think there is something worth putting on the table about them leaving the Barbican, which is that at the time this was occurring the RSC was considering its operating model passionately and aware that it was not sustainable as a model. It had huge concerns about the strains it was putting on its artists; the planning processes it was going through; it was called the Hamster Wheel at one point, and it was also locked into an agreement with the Barbican, with which neither party was particularly happy and we were aware of this from the Barbican perspective as well. So, in coming to us, which they did in 1999 and
26 Item 7a saying, ‘we think we have a problem and we think our audiences are ageing and we need to do something about that as well’. It was clear to us that they were in an unsustainable model as it was and that part of sorting that out was looking at the relationship with the Barbican and their presence in London.
I think you are right to say it was a risk and we were all very aware of it. But, it was one that the board of the RSC took and yes, we gave them advice and yes, with hindsight we would perhaps have given some advice more strongly than others. But we did give them advice. It was their decision and we did recognise the force of their argument when they said they wanted to leave. So, to just say it was nice and cosy, I do not think, that were Adrian Noble and his team here, they would quite agree with you.
Meg Hillier (Chair): You are giving £13 million of public money to the RSC. Did you require a business case about the plans? The RSC’s own evidence talks about the difficulty of presenting work in a variety of London venues and the availability of appropriate London theatres being more difficult than anticipated. Surely those are things that could have been foreseen? And did you not, a major funder require a detailed business plan about the alternative options to the Barbican?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: We did and indeed we commissioned an independent report to look at the London operating environment. But, I think one of the things that I should say is we do not manage companies. It was a risk that the RSC board took. We were asking them for a more detailed business case than the one on which they took the decision. However, they felt that the risk was worth taking and that they had the assets with which to underwrite those risks. They were not at that point requiring our money in order to take this action.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Because you felt that the public money was protected?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: Public money was not involved with the decision to leave the Barbican.
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Can I make one point about that? I think the plan to leave the Barbican still intended for the company to remain in control and financially supporting its work in London. The end result of that has been the position that Michael (Boyd) has identified and the problems that we have had with this summer season coming into London, where the company, because of the financial problems that it has, is looking for that work to come into London outside its own control. That is a very different world from the world that was being looked at the beginning of the creation of the plan to leave the Barbican. So, in a sense the key to the problem was more to do with the lack of income that came into the company around that financial model that was imagined. Actually that was something, which had a large number of people excited in the company. Indeed it was felt up to that time that was a financial model that would work and indeed it was a model that should be operated in order to release the company in order to create a new operational model, which allowed it to work in a different way; which released it from the problem of the hamster wheel as we perceived it at the time.
So, the thing as a piece had to fall in place as a unified plan. As the money did not materialise as part of that new operational plan, other problems then fell in, ending up in the place where we are today.
Hilary Carty, Director of Performing, Arts Council London: I think it is worth exercising the different economic environment that we are working in today to, let us say, the one we were operating in the late 1990s when this plan was first conceived,
27 Item 7a both in terms of the economics of the country but also in terms of who the providers are within the London scene. I think looking forward one of the things we are incredibly pleased about is that the RSC is in good negotiations with a number of different facilities in order to secure a London presence. That is absolutely important to us and we are strongly confident, from the information given to us that we will get to that position very, very soon indeed.
Now, I think it is a positive picture going forward, but we do have to acknowledge that different scenarios played out within in a six-year gap you then had to update your scenario according to the world as it is.
Len Duvall, AM: Sorry, does that include in terms of negotiation of venue, does that also include in terms of, I see in the background notes, the issue around the loss of sponsorship from the City of London and trying to recover that back up because do they not sort of go together? Much as you say it is not money driven, any subsidy, your subsidy matched with whatever is raised has got to be important. Is that twin-tracked? How does that work?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: There are two exercises that I suppose that Vikki (Heywood) and I are pursuing. One is to re-examine the internal economy of the RSC. We have removed £1 million of our overheads on our basically Stratford-dominated operation this year. We are looking for the same next year if not a little bit more. Meanwhile, of course, we are also engaged in fundraising work in a very proactive way, both from the private sector and from statutory bodies as well. We will always be looking for additional support so that we can raise the ceiling of our ambition as a company. But we are not doing that without looking at our own economy to carve out some of our own resources to free up our thinking at the same time. Really we are looking to regain our artistic freedom crudely by balancing our books.
Len Duvall, AM: Let me just go back to something you said earlier. You said, ‘compromising artistic direction’. Is it inevitable that any venue you go to barring your negotiation, not wishing to disclose anything in terms of your hand, that there is always going to be an element of that one way or another? I do not expect you moved off, but one of the issues around, according to the background notes, even to the Arts Council, is that the Barbican was some constraint. I think you mentioned it earlier in your issues. But is not any venue for a touring theatre going to be constrained in some ways in terms of …
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Absolutely, of course.
Len Duvall, AM: Is there a strategy to minimise that? Can you minimise that?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: I think it is about being clear on your no pasarán line, where you give nothing. For me it is a reinvention of the original Royal Shakespeare Company ensemble, going back to the size of that. I think one of our problems as a company has been that the ensemble has grown very quickly to as many as 90-some years. I do not understand an ensemble of 90. I simply do not. Maybe I am simple. I understand an ensemble of up to, but not really much exceeding 40. I can understand the intimacy and intensity of relationships that makes possible. I will defend the work of that company to the death and no theatre owner will start nibbling away at what we do.
I am much more prepared, if you like, to take the best of previous thinking in terms of the rest of our operations and to celebrate the advantage of the fact that, yes, All’s Well That Ends Well is fitting in between Judi Dench’s film dates. But, that is fine. I do not
28 Item 7a think we should rule out the likes of Judi Dench or Alan Rickman or Ian McKellan coming back in between having a great time in Hollywood. I see no problem in that. Especially as they are people for whom their defining moment was with the company. The reason we are going to be able to attract these high-profile actors, who are the alumni of the RSC, back to the RSC is because they can see a genuine, good-faith attempt to revisit the reasons for collective theatre-making, which in some ways has been as alien and as urgent now to English culture as it did when Peter Hall brought it in under the inspiration of the Berlin ensemble in 1960.
Len Duvall, AM: Going back to a question you asked, Chair, of the Arts Council. Of course that is right for the company to take that position and doing their bit. As a funder you must have a view about that artistic direction as well. You do not just sit on the line and watch these people fall down. You are a principle funder, so where does that fit into it because I think you earlier said that they took the decision and with hindsight we might have been a bit more forceful? So where is your role now in some of those issues of either saying, well, that is all very well, I think it is very laudable if you are cutting your overheads but where do you come in to make sure that we maximise the use of this subsidy and that, I suppose, from our point of view, we get our London season back in some form or another? That is good for the company because I suppose if you are not strong and stable we all lose out nationally, not just in London. So where do you fit into that because I did not quite get that earlier on the question from the Chair?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: Well, we have a monitoring role. But, I think, more interestingly we have a pretty constant dialogue. Since Michael (Boyd) and Vikki (Heywood) have been there I should think we meet very frequently. The RSC is at a stage where they are considering options, developing ideas. They use us to an extent as a soundboard, which I think is appropriate. However they are an independent charity. They take their own decisions in the end but I think it is fair to say the dialogue is very close and I would be surprised if they took a decision which we found we disagreed with at this point.
Len Duvall, AM: So, in effect, you are really the golden shareholder are you not? One of them? The biggest one?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: We are a major stakeholder, yes.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Under what circumstances would you withdraw funding from the RSC? How far would they have to go in making that decision? What does that take?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: I think they would have to be failing artistically. They would have to be losing their audiences and they would have to be directionless. At that point we would have to say, what is the value of the subsidy in there? They have never been there. They have always had a very strong view of where they want to go and I think Michael (Boyd) has a particularly strong view, which we are very keen to support. So, I do not think we would ever get there. I really do not.
Noel Lynch, AM: Michael, you said you have a new home in August or autumn, I think you said, next year
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: We are homing in on a new home.
Noel Lynch, AM: I thought you said you would have moved in by autumn?
29 Item 7a
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes, so we had better have the funds.
Noel Lynch, AM: Can you give us a hint about where or how permanent it is likely to be?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Certainly not where because we are in negotiation and we would not want to …
Noel Lynch, AM: Are we talking London?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: We are talking London and I think it is fair to say that our prejudice is that central London is the best place, although some of our activity inevitably, for instance, our outreach, our education work will initially be very peripatetic and outreach-based, because where we land is unlikely to have wonderful state-of-the- art education facilities. So, the company rehearsing Macbeth, for instance, this winter will be taking that production out to schools during its rehearsal process.
We are starting up a pilot for a new young people’s company as part of the new work festival next year, which will also, when we come to London, be playing schools. There is an extent to which, without being rude to anyone, we feel we have ceded territory in the area of young people’s theatre around schools to some really not quite so fantastic companies who have been able to secure funding on the back of a politically correct agenda. We think we should be getting back into that area and actually reinventing theatre in education all over again. Perhaps make it fashionable again. A lot of our work with schools will be in schools as opposed to in the theatre because it will not be as well provided with facilities as somewhere else might be.
The question of how long the home… It sort of goes together with the policy with the core ensemble. In about three years time my ambition is to have it as a standing, returning ensemble that begins to make a breakthrough. The key point is when we would begin to retain repertoire. So, last year’s hit Midsummer Night’s Dream, doesn’t just have to just disappear. It goes into next year’s repertoire as well. Maybe some of the new work has surprised you. It has legs as well and you can keep it in the repertoire. That is about continuity. That is about long-termism.
There is a necessary, prudent qualification on that right now, which is that you cannot divorce our horizons in London from our horizons in Stratford. It is the joy of the RSC. It is a defining quality of the RSC that it unites London and the Midlands in that way and it is also our cross to bear because right from the word go we were always funded as though we were a one-base theatre company. The National Theatre end game begins and ends really with the sense that they are a one-campus company. We have a slightly more complicated traffic up and down the M40 and the Chiltern railway line and until we land in Stratford with an absolute certainty of our campus there, of course, we are engaged in researching a £100 million redevelopment in Stratford, until we know exactly what theatres we are going to be working with there, we cannot enter into probably a more than three-or-four-year relationship in London. So, quite frankly, I think our London audience would be hugely grateful even for that degree of permanence.
Noel Lynch, AM: A West End venue would probably be out of the question, seeing you have said even your sell-out ones would not make much sense?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: With Shakespeare unless there is a highly reduced cast or you are absolutely selling out, you are not going to make a lot of money. With All’s
30 Item 7a Well That Ends Well we are obviously very confident that it will sell very well with Judi (Dench), but the run is so short that it is just about going to wash its face and maybe make a tiny bit.
Noel Lynch, AM: To Richard (Pulford), do West End audiences really have an appetite? I know you said, was it 22 last year?
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: It was 28. Do they have an appetite for Shakespeare?
Noel Lynch, AM: Yes.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: They have an appetite for good almost anything. I do not think you can say they have an appetite for Shakespeare. They have an appetite for good Shakespeare. As long as the RSC’s Shakespeare is as good as it has traditionally been in the past I do not see any reason to doubt that there would be an appetite for it. One is always speculating.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: I want to come onto the future business model for RSC Enterprises, but just to tie down that last point about commercial Shakespeare, if I can put it that way, in the West End. What would it take to get more of the RSC into the West End in commercial terms? Is it size of company? Is it expense? What, given that there are clearly the 28 productions …
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: Well, there is a very straightforward balance on a commercial basis, the same, to be honest, as making chocolates. How much does it cost to make them and how much can you sell them for and how many can you sell?
How much it costs to make an RSC production depends on the production size, which RSC is concerned to maintain. It depends on the size of the company they are bringing in. Those are the two principle determinants.
How many people can you sell it to? Well, that depends on a whole variety of things and it would be foolish to deny that in the West End in particular the cast is very important in that. I am sure that Michael (Boyd) is right that Dame Judi (Dench) bringing a company into the West End has a very good chance, the best chance that one might actually imagine of a reasonably short, contained run and doing extremely well in a suitably sized theatre. It certainly is the case that without a star cast, whatever one means by that, in any case a cast, which is well known and also one with which the RSC feels artistically satisfied. You can put together a star cast but Michael (Boyd) would not want to go anywhere near it and quite rightly too. So, it is a balancing act. A star name or two certainly help. Very, very few British actors are pretty well guaranteed to sell out a West End house for a reasonable run, but I am very happy to say that Dame Judi Dench is one of them.
Meg Hillier (Chair): I just wanted to pin down a point about two things, one to the RSC and one more to Richard. Just to clarify about the idea of a new home in the West End, as in the West End theatres, is that a viable option? Maybe you can both briefly comment on that, just to pin it down. Then just linking that to the Camden Roundhouse season, if you can call it a season, which caused you a lot of financial trouble. I wonder if you have learned any lessons from that, which will help in your planning for whatever you do now?
31 Item 7a Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: I think the West End is in an interesting place at the moment and things are happening there. Changes are being made. You will be aware of Cameron Macintosh’s plan to build a new theatre on top of the Gielgud, with 500 seats. Now no commercial person builds a 500-seat theatre. Now I think the world of commercial theatre is beginning to look to itself as to how it continues to present interesting, innovative work within a context of a commercial environment.
So, the economy of the West End has become increasingly mixed. When I was running the Royal Court Theatre, alongside the Almeida Theatre, we were moving around the West End in two very different ways. Sometimes we were actually producing our work in West End theatres in a subsidised environment and sometimes we were producing our work with our commercial hats on. I think the Arts Council has already signalled in various documents they have produced that it is interested in, and looking to see, an increased mixing of these economies. That is not to say that there should be any confusion about subsidy enabling commercial producers to make money and one has to be very clear about the nature of the arrangement that you come to with a commercial producer and a subsidised organisation. But, there is no doubt that the world of the West End and the economy of the West End is getting chopped up in all sorts of different ways and I think part of the future for the RSC, whether it ends up in the West End or not, will certainly be as part of that mixed economy of work that is going on in London.
Meg Hillier (Chair): So, you think it could be viable? I am not saying you should reveal whom you are discussing things with but it would be viable for the RSC to consider a West End venue?
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Yes, and as I said in both contexts. I see no reason why it should not do that in the same way that the National Theatre did.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Then the Camden Roundhouse season, briefly, because we have a lot of things to cover?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Camden was necessarily, given the decisions of the approach to the exit from the Barbican, that is, kept tremendously close to the chest till the very, very last minute in a way that was very upsetting for the Barbican, very understandably I think, planned and certainly marketed at a very late stage in the game. So, it was operating on that disadvantage from the word go. It obviously had the expense, which could be anticipated, of turning what was, essentially, a non-theatrical venue into a theatrical venue and that is expensive. It was asking, given the short marketing leads, quite a big ask of core Barbican audience to switch allegiance and transport habits very, very quickly.
It did have the ambition, which I think it fulfilled. It was mentioned earlier, a sense of a stagnation amongst our audience at the Barbican, which I do not think can be laid straightforwardly at the Barbican’s door at all. There are lots of lovely, dynamic audiences that go to the Barbican. But, we did achieve an audience at the Roundhouse that was on average 20 years younger than our habitual audiences at the Barbican. The box office performances of the pieces in the Roundhouse were less than we would have hoped for, but we had experienced such disappointing results at the Barbican too, in previous years. We had not been exclusively selling out at the Barbican, by any manner of means. Probably, on reflection, the Roundhouse was asking someone in Wimbledon or Richmond just to travel that extra mile too far.
32 Item 7a It is probably reasonable to say that we should not prejudice our audience, in either north, west, south or east London, that is, be in the middle. Otherwise somebody takes the huff.
Meg Hillier (Chair): So, it was a useful lesson.
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Yes.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: My questions are around RSC Enterprises fundraising and your new business model. But I wanted to preface with a question, in a sense, what is the creative model that the business model is designed to deliver because you touched on some things but our questioning has not actually drawn that out in terms of the 40 versus the 90 and you talked a bit about rediscovering your role in education. So, perhaps Michael (Boyd) could start by telling us since Project Fleet has sunk what the new creative project is and then if it is appropriate for Vikki tell us how you are going to pay for it, sort of thing, in terms of the sustainable financial model and then we can pick up final funding questions from the Arts Council?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Simply and briefly, our policy could be described as gathering around the following issues: one is the issue of ensemble. A smaller ensemble of 40 being at the heart of it and one which is invested with greater preparation time and greater teaching and training resources in such a way that it actually absorbs much of our thinking about a separate academy. You may have heard about the idea of a separate establishment, basically a drama training school for classical theatre. I suppose I have sucked that thinking into the main body of the company, which is where I think it belongs. That is not to say that at some future date we may not develop ambitions to extend that beyond the life of the company itself, but the life of the company is where our priority is right now. There is a real need for greater provision of skills training for work on classical theatre: 17th-century language, the kind of physical skills to present the kind of more naturalistic theatre that Shakespeare wrote.
This company can and should engage itself, I suppose in two main identifiable things. One is in depth and sustained projects of real scale. Next year we are looking at all of the major tragedies, as well as Romeo and Juliet in great depth. Our successes in the past, Wars of the Roses, Nicholas Nickelby, the This England history cycle, the Jacobean ensemble have been doing things that no one else can do or certainly not do as well as us. I think that is something we should celebrate and explore in the future.
An element that sits alongside that, is training ensembles. Well actually no, there is another element of that training ensemble I want to highlight, which is its involvement and commitment to new work, seeing the work of new writers and experimental theatre-makers through the exacting prism of Shakespeare’s achievement. That is, do not retreat into laboratory, coterie theatre-making, be experimental and always have the ambition of reaching all of the human race. Our first big exercise on that is with our new work festival, next autumn, in Stratford, the fruits of which will be coming to London with the core ensemble.
Sat next to the core ensemble is a group of actors who are pursuing a model, which is not broken therefore does not need mending; the model of the Henry VI, which is the third company, which I put together and the Jacobean company, which Greg Doran put together. It is quick; it is dirty; it is furious; it is intense; it is very clearly focused in its artistic objectives and again covering a very ambitious, broad canvas. Next year, it is going to be the Spanish Golden Age contemporaries of Shakespeare: Lopa de Vega, Cervantes, Calderon and so on. We are going to be taking an in-depth look at that, but
33 Item 7a that company is not going to be afforded anything extraordinary in terms of training space.
A third element, I suppose, is that which floated from Fleet and which did not go down, which is freeing up our schedule so that we can respond opportunistically to the availability of an actor who we would love to actually make the offer, ‘well, what would you like to do?’ We are not a totally grand concept and director-led enterprise. Sometimes it is actors that lead the idea and sometimes actors of real profile. We hope that we are building into our pattern of work the possibility that, at least once or twice a year, we are going to be able to do a production that can move very fluidly wherever it feels like, wherever the demand is, in other words. Because, there is no question that the price you pay for this core ensemble, it is that there are only 52 weeks in the year and there is just about time for that company to prepare its work in London, play in Stratford, visit Newcastle and play in London and then they are back working again because they are rehearsing underneath their London performances. They are rehearsing for the next year’s programme. They are not going to be free to go here, there and everywhere in an opportunistic way. I hope that commercial producers will be knocking on our doors frantically for shows from that company and we will be able to say, ‘sorry, no, you have to come to our home to see this one’. Maybe then, every three years, we put an end to the life of that company. We float it off and say ‘let us take the best of what we have achieved over the last three years and take it on a world tour’. But, the generation of that work needs a certain amount of stability and yes, in terms of location, predictability.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Let us move on to whether that creates compelling theatre that puts bums on seats, the cost base and business model that can sustain that.
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Thank you for the diversion because it was very important. So, yes the company has a new artistic policy and therefore it needs to develop a new operational plan to enable that to happen and I guess that is perhaps the first part of where we are looking. As Michael (Boyd) has outlined, the operational plan has to deliver work in Stratford all year round and it has to deliver national and international touring. It has to deliver in Newcastle and in its London home. That is quite a lot of delivery.
In the process of working out that operational plan what we have also managed to achieve, as Michael (Boyd) has identified, are some one-off productions, which are free, if you like, of the wheel of the core ensemble. This enables the planning process to be much freer and I think that is one of the great things that did come out of Fleet and it is important not to lose that in a moment. In coming away from the model that was causing the company so many problems, and those were very painful decisions that were made, it has enabled the company to plan in a different way. Because the core ensemble and the other companies are not connected in any way, there is no cross casting, you are able to unplug the two and turn one group off into a different world.
I think the income is going to come from a combination. It always does for Arts organisations. There is no doubt that we receive a considerable amount of public subsidy and we ought to spend it wisely and we ought to ensure that we are accessible within all the widest context of that word. We need to keep our ticket prices low but we also need to achieve box-office income and the company does achieve quite substantial box-office income. In all those places that I have listed it is selling its tickets to the public and making money on that and it needs to continue to have a pressure on it to make money from its box office.
34 Item 7a It has had in the past, and continues to have, a very strong track record on fundraising. I would not say that fundraising has been made any easier by the last year or so and I would not say that coming out of London, or coming out of control of London, helped the company raise funding, but I think it can certainly look again to a model, if London is involved in this, which has quite a strong fundraising piece of the income jigsaw.
I think, as you referred to, RSC Enterprise is still a very important part of the plan, but I think it is going to have to be modified in terms of its aspirations, certainly in terms of its aspirations that is included in exploitation of brand in the old business model, if I can call it that. I think some of those aspirations were misplaced, but nonetheless, I do feel the company has a brand and that it has a value in that brand and it can maximise its income in a way that some other companies cannot. I would say those are in the areas of merchandising and publishing and film and television. Critically they are in the area of West End transfers and something that maybe everyone has forgotten in the mists of time but there is a show still running called, Les Miserables, and that show has produced very large sums of money for the RSC and there is absolutely no reason why future West End transfers, putting on our commercial hat as opposed to our subsidised hat, could not be making very reasonable sums of money for the RSC. Certainly it is the area that has been exploited in the past by the Royal Court, the National Theatre and onwards it should go and because of the new operational model that we are talking about I think there is every opportunity for those pieces to come along. They would not necessarily come out of the core because, Michael (Boyd) has explained, that is not really the most cost effective area. That is really our more luxurious end of the market in that sense. They certainly could come out of the one-off and they certainly could come out of the Swan.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Can you just put some numbers around that? We have heard £1 million off the cost base at Stratford.
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Talking about the cost base there is one other thing I should put in there, within this new operational plan, the business model, there has to be incorporated the aspirations for the redevelopment in Stratford, which also changes the company’s model yet again.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Okay, that is longer-term and more capital and I am just trying to get a sense …
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Well, it is also revenues.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Okay. Assuming the £13 million is fixed, and I will come on to that in a minute, what are your aspirations for RSC Enterprises? What is the scale of the challenge of the new money either through enterprise spin-offs or conventional fundraising? What sort of sums of money are we talking about being necessary to get this back on kilter, because the figures we have here are there is a deficit of £2.8 million? I do not know if that is an annual running deficit or an accumulated debt.
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: If it were an annual running deficit we probably would not be sitting here this afternoon. It is absolutely the accumulated deficit and there is absolutely already a business plan in position to write that deficit off over three years. That is the reference that Michael (Boyd) made to the cut in cost base and the ongoing bringing of the company into line. We will be able to put a good financial plan out at the end of this year and we are making significant inroads into that deficit. We have to because until you get that sorted out you do not achieve the artistic freedom that you want.
35 Item 7a
The future model, of course, would not take that deficit into account because it would have gone and the future model I am afraid cannot give you figures on, having only been in post for 10 weeks. We could return to that another day. All that I will say is we now have an operating model that works with a bottom line that is being met. The cuts that have gone into the organisation have not in any way affected the work that is seen on stage, but through Michael’s (Boyd) leadership within the company in making sure that the money remains absolutely focused on the work of the company, the organisation has been able to reduce its overheads.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Okay, and I think it is probably unfair to bandy numbers around, across the table, but it would be quite useful to have that fed through to us afterwards, because in a sense, really, what we are here to do as the London Assembly is to see what we can to help you make the case and strengthen your arm and encourage you to have a proper home here in London. The purpose behind the question is to understand how likely that is and the financial model that will make that sustainable. So, I think if you could give us some more help after this meeting that would be good.
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Of course.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: So, finally to the Arts Council, finally from me anyway, in terms of the £13 million, which will presumably go up by inflation, a bit more maybe, there is clearly a problem at present having a London home, a London winter home, on the current financing. Is solving that problem not dependent on more public subsidy really?
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: Two things – yes indeed the subsidy is going up to £14 million in 2005/2006 if I can answer that point. No I do not think, for the very reasons that Vikki (Heywood) has outlined that it is necessarily dependent on more subsidy and I would also say, from our perspective, the RSC has not asked us for more subsidy to help them achieve this. We are working closely with them but they recognise that the RSC is the largest client of the Arts Council who already as part of their subsidy agreement know being in London is part of their remit. But that is not necessarily the most appropriate argument to be making.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Perhaps the way to end it is just to get you to repeat again that ultimately that grant is dependent on, being a national grant as well, having a London element and if this issue is not solved then the £13 million is under threat.
Nicola Thorold, Director of Theatre, Arts Council England: It is very clear that the current model that the RSC is putting forward is a national model and that includes London and we have no reason to debate that with them at all, so yes.
Mike Tuffrey, AM: Good. I am happy to leave it there.
Meg Hillier (Chair): I think that is a very good London point. Just a couple of questions to mop up really, I wanted to ask Richard (Pulford) a couple of questions about the theatre tickets initiative since we have been following that closely in the Committee, but perhaps one point to Michael Boyd or Vikki (Heywood), I am not quite sure which of you, you have said some of the summer productions will come to London. When will you be able to announce when that will be and where that will be?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: Soon.
36 Item 7a Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: Well, the minute a commercial producer says, yes, is the honest truth. We are in the hands of a commercial producer. It is their interests to announce it soon because then they can get their tickets on sale. This involves people’s employment and it is about relationships and offers to actors. So, it takes as long as it takes to negotiate those arrangements, but we hope, from our point of view, as soon as possible.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Do you think by 2004 we will able to see an RSC production?
Vikki Heywood, Interim Managing Director, Royal Shakespeare Company: You will be seeing one anyway, from February to April (2004) and we hope you will be able to see one or even two more productions.
Meg Hillier (Chair): We will look forward to hearing about that. If you can let us know that will be great. I have one more question that I will come back to, probably to you Vikki, after I have asked the Society of London Theatres about the theatre ticket initiative for 2004. Is planning under way currently? We have your evaluation report.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: It is under way, I understand. I am not directly involved in it myself, but my staff tell me, yes. I think they have had very productive discussions with their opposite numbers, but it is very much in the early stages. We understood from the Mayor’s office that he was hoping that a further £350,000 could be made available and we are happy about that and are immediately in discussion as to on what basis that money should be used.
I wonder if I might just say a little word about the 2003 promotion. I know that you have seen the report and that is simply to say that the 2003 promotion, which was enormously successful in the sense of shifting tickets, it shifted far more tickets than a similar, very different campaign the year before and was carried on for a long time after the £350,000 as a source of subsidy had run out. As I understand it there was some debate about the effectiveness of that campaign from a variety of points of view.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Diplomatically put, Richard.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: Well, I know that was something that exercised your Committee, Chair. The only thing I would like to say about that is that campaign was pushed to us on the basis that it was especially to meet an economic objective, to stimulate economic activity within London. It was, perhaps this is putting it a bit strongly, to some extent at any rate a secondary priority then, once that first priority had been declared, to use the money also, to try and use the money effectively for audience development.
I am sure my colleagues on this side of the table would agree with me that audience development is a very long process and it needs to be planned very far in advance. I think the way that the 2003 campaign turned out, the results were really very surprisingly good considering that that particular objective had come rather late in the day. They could always have been better, but I think they were perhaps better than one might have expected, given the particular way in which it was structured.
I hope that whatever happens for 2004, I do think it is terribly important that we are absolutely clear right at the outset, what precisely the objectives are and what is their order of priority, one with another.
Meg Hillier (Chair): I think that was a very neat summary of some of the issues that we have been trying to tackle. We were hoping you might come back and speak to us
37 Item 7a about this, perhaps with the Mayor’s advisor, some time in the next few weeks because we are obviously keen to get involved and discuss it at the planning stage because we still have a number of questions that we feel need to be answered.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: Could I just make one third observation? Sometimes when you set objectives you do them without necessarily having in place the kind of infrastructure information that enables you to track the objectives. If they are objectives, which require you to make some progress, the question is always progress against what? If you do not know the baseline you cannot judge the progress.
To be honest, in terms of past years we have had to look at some of the baselines by making extrapolations back from an audience survey, which has been undertaken in 2003, which is better than nothing, but perhaps is not ideal.
Meg Hillier (Chair): Our objection is that the Mayor declared this a runaway success on the basis of what we would consider a little information. But I just wanted to finish off this section by asking Vikki (Heywood) or Michael (Boyd) and perhaps the Arts Council might want to chip in here too, if you had £350,000 from the Mayor to diversify theatre audiences and reach out to different groups, what would you do with it? How far would you make it stretch?
Michael Boyd, Director, RSC: I would devote it entirely to the Royal Shakespeare Company and I think it would really have to centre around the idea of bringing more people in to see the money is to do with actors and being able to afford the ticket price. Summer festival season £10, the season this year was a tremendous success. The National’s £10 season has been a tremendous success. The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow made its reputation on the back of a 50p ticket policy, its reputation for artistic courage because it organised its economics such that it could make sure it had full houses for extraordinarily challenging work. And yes, I think that is probably the way I would spend it, but I would probably be asking Richard’s (Pulford) advice as to where to actually apply the pressure so that you got the most return.
Hilary Carty, Director of Performing, Arts Council London: Well, I think similarly it would be very interesting as a starting point to engage with the outcome of the previous two years so that you could see what has actually hit home as it were. For us, I think, the population of London is incredibly diverse and we should celebrate that. It also has vast numbers of young people who we want to entice into theatre and we want to keep in theatre and I do not think any scheme that the Arts Council would develop in London would miss out on that young audience. It is not that we are going for a young audience, it is because we want to ensure that theatre itself survives and the theatrical experience, which we think is so important to people’s lives, just becomes a day-to-day occurrence for young people and they just begin to walk in and out of our theatre buildings as though it is going to the sweet shop. So we would be very, very keen to focus it on getting and keeping that younger audience.
Meg Hillier (Chair): We may come to you for more input before we have Richard (Pulford) and his colleagues back.
Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatres: Can I make a supplementary point? I think it is very important to understand that the economy of West End theatre has two parts. It is the people who own theatres and the people who put on shows. There are 40 commercial theatres in the West End and within the Society’s membership about 90 people who are in one way or another primarily involved in production rather than theatre management. If you are the Royal Shakespeare
38 Item 7a Company you have a continuing company and a continuing ensemble and continuing production plans and you are in a position, quite rightly so, and we expect it to mount a large educational programme, for example, an audience outreach programme in association with your main stage work. You need to bear in mind that an awful lot of theatrical production in the West End is the result of decisions taken by often two and three-man bands in terms of production teams, raising the finance for it and putting on a show and it is not realistic to think that the audience development challenge in those two cases is in any way similar. It is very different. That is the only point I would like to make.
Meg Hillier (Chair): I think a number of us are doing further work on this in between our public sessions, but we look forward to calling you back and getting evidence from others.
We have now finished our session with you all, so thank you very much for your time. It has been very interesting and we wish you the best in finding a home because we, as the London Assembly, wish to see the RSC here in London. So good luck.
[Ends]
39 Item 7a Appendix F: Terms of Reference
The London Assembly established the Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee on 10 April 2002. It is one of eight committees that, between them, cover the range of policy areas relevant to London government. The members of the Committee are:
Meg Hillier (Chair) Labour Angie Bray (Deputy Chair) Conservative Mike Tuffrey Liberal Democrat Brian Coleman Conservative Len Duvall Labour Noel Lynch Green
General Terms of Reference for the Committee
To examine and report from time to time on- • the strategies, policies and actions of the Mayor and the Functional Bodies • matters of importance to Greater London • as they relate to culture, sport and tourism in London.
To examine and report to the Assembly from time to time on the Mayor’s Culture Strategy, in particular its implementation and revision.
To take into deliberations the cross cutting themes of: the health of persons in Greater London; the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and the promotion of opportunity account in its
To respond on behalf of the Assembly to consultations and similar processes when within its terms of reference.”
Details of the Committee’s work programme, reports, meeting agendas and minutes are available at www.london.gov.uk/assembly
Contact Assembly Secretariat Assembly Press Office Danny Myers, Assistant Denise Malcolm, Assembly Scrutiny Manager Press Officer 020 7983 4394 020 7983 4090 [email protected] [email protected]
Oral Evidence The Committee held an evidentiary hearing on 12th November, 2003 at which the following people gave evidence:
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