President's Address to the AGM 2011
I make something of a habit in these annual addresses of remarking that theatre is one of Britain's liveliest and most economically beneficial industries and, for the last two years, I've gone on about the way it has actually bucked the recessional trend. The West End has had two consecutive years of biggest-ever attendances. And commercial theatre operators, not just in the metropolis, have continued spending substantial sums of money on improving, updating and restoring their buildings, almost as if we were still living in a boom period.
Well, to be painfully honest, right now I do detect a bit of a slow-down, but it is a slow-down, not a grinding halt. The real worry over the past year has been on the non-commercial, or what is humorously called the 'subsidised' front. The inverted commas mark a word that should, in all fairness, be replaced by another. Modest investments of public money in civilising and socially healthful activities that do not produce visible dividends and bonuses are always called subsidies by bean-counters who regard culture as an avoidable infection.
The bodies that should be our champions on this front, the Arts Councils, have had to suffer cuts like everyone else in these hard times and this was bound to be reflected in their allocation of funds, but it is a cruel fact that theatre has taken a disproportionately big hit. The effects are uneven across the board and some, I know, have done reasonably well, but there is no doubt that some theatre companies will struggle to survive and some will go under.
We should never forget that the main source of subsidy in the non-commercial world does not come from the public purse but from the members of the companies themselves, in their acceptance of pay and conditions that would be regarded as contemptible in any other field.
There's a lesson here, of course. If you want a job well done and done at minimum cost, employ people who love their work and will strive for perfection, however mean the financial rewards may be. But don't expect this rule to be general. If you employ a tax accountant, an estate agent or an IT expert, you will pay them the appropriate fee, no matter how much they enjoy their work. It is only in the arts world that the workers are expected to be grateful for their wonderful luck in being paid at all.
This attitude leads to the depressingly common and damaging misconception that commercial theatre and the so-called subsidised sector are somehow quite separate, totally opposed in character and inhabiting completely different worlds. This mindset regards the commercial sector as the OK bit, taking every necessary risk without outside help and making respectable profits by wisely providing the public with what it wants and doing it efficiently and well. The noncommercial sector, by contrast, is seen as parasitic, relying on subsidy for its very existence and going on its own sweet, self-centred, unprofitable way, cheerfully ignoring public taste. The one doesn't expect a handout and the other doesn't deserve it.
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