In The Paper

This week’s issue of The Stage concentrates on the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review on the cultural sector. Commencing with five pages of news and reaction from industry leaders, other features include:

• Insight: As major arts organisations wake up to the reality of budget cuts, some theatres have already proved they can survive without subsidies. But, writes Simon Tait, it’s going to get tougher with everyone chasing the same money

• Culture suffered at the Comprehensive Spending Review because the public doesn’t understand arts funding, argues Alistair Smith. Audiences need to be made aware that their contribution is essential

• Media expert Maggie Brown looks at the BBC deal that will see the licence fee frozen for six years while taking on funding of the World Service, BBC Monitoring and S4C.

  The upshot is that by the end of the current licence fee settlement in 2017, the BBC estimates it will be £638 million worse off than currently. Can that really be met totally by yet more efficiency, sales of vacant property and reduced back-office staff? The body language of BBC experts suggests not.

• The cuts will demand good management at all levels, argues theatrical accountant Anthony Pins

Also this week:

• Dear John: “In my latest role, I have to perform a play within a play. How do I play two characters at once?” With advice from Gene David Kirk and Catherine Cusack

• With more Olivier awards than any other performer and a mastery of Shakespeare, Sondheim, Coward and Wilde, producer Bill Kenwright argues that Judi Dench deserves your vote for the Greatest Stage Actor

• Broadway musical Fela! hits the London stage next month, promising to give audiences a sensory experience. Nick Smurthwaite finds out more from its director and choreographer, the Tony award winner Bill T Jones

• Matthew Hemley meets Rupert Evans, pinning the hyperactive star of ITV1’s new drama The Little House down long enough to talk family, fame and an incident with a lion in Zimbabwe

• Wild Rose’s Julian Deplidge is passionate about the company’s ice show productions, which mix dance, circus and skating. Douglas McPherson finds out about its history nd global ambitions

• For someone who drifted into acting, Kika Markham’s extensive stage and screen credits are well documented. She talks to Nick Smurthwaite about her career, including her role as a bohemian matriarch in Nina Raine’s new Royal Court play

• More used to touring village halls, Eastern Angles allowed its ideas to run riot when it staged productions in a warehouse and a disused air force hangar. Kevin Berry talks to artistic director Ivan Cutting about the joys and challenges of site-specific theatre

• To celebrate Halloween, we present a round-up of where and when ghosts have been witnessed by actors and audiences in London’s theatres

The Stage is available from major newsagents every Thursday for £1.50. For subscription offers, go to http://www.thestage.co.uk/subscribe.

Posted by Scott Matthewman at 10:01 AM | Permalink

TV budgets are being slashed, but it’s still possible to produce quality drama, as Mark Gatiss, creator of BBC4’s The First Men in the Moon, his co-star Rory Kinnear and the programme’s composer Michael Price tell Matthew Hemley in this week’s issue of The Stage:

I had envisaged [Rory Kinnear’s character] Bedford as being a bit like Doug McClure - a square-jawed Edwardian. But I realised that, when Rory came in, it’s a funnier part than I thought. And what makes it come alive is that Bedford and Cavor are funny characters and wrong-headed in their own way.

Hampstead Theatre’s artistic director Edward Hall talks to Maria Hodson about the action packed opening season he’s got planned for the venue

Established writes might get a head start in box office pre-sales but you and I know that putting a play on is a complete lottery. It’s down to chemistry - how it’s directed, how it’s acted. An established writer might come off the rails as easily as en emerging writer. There’s no formula, and if there was I don’t think I would do it.

Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay tell Tony Cooke what it’s like to reprise their TV sitcom Yes, Prime Minister for the stage after more than 20 years away from the show

“We were both very cautious,” admits Lynn. “When we were commissioned to write the play, we refused to take any money unless we could come through with the goods. On our first day writing, we were saying it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work. We’ll have a lovely week in Somerset, with lots of good wine, and look at the cows.”

Tim Webb, artistic director of interactive children’s theatre company Oily Cart, talks to Lisa Martland about the challenge of creating multi-sensory theatre for children with special educational needs

Of course we want to be ambitious in the work we present to young people with learning disabilities - they deserve the very best theatre we can create - but we can be artistically ambitious on a number of scales

Also this week:

• Tim Etchells, artistic director of experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment, talks to Aleks Sierz about its new show The Thrill of it All and how the company maintains its creative hunger after 26 years

• In the third of our series profiling the greatest stage actors, eminent Shakespeare scholar Professor Stanley Wells explains why the ‘inimitable’ Laurence Olivier deserves your vote. Read more about our ten featured actors and vote for your favourite at thestage.co.uk/greatestactor.

• Backstage Focus: Chief Carpenter Frank Matthews talks to Kevin Berry about his three-decades-long association with Alan Ayckbourn and the Stephen Joseph Theatre

• Find out more about The Stage’s shortlist for our annual Special Award for Achievement in Regional Theatre, to be awarded to be the TMA Regional Theatre Awards next month.

• In the first of a new strand of Insight Focus pieces looking at cultural organisations, Susan Elkin investigates the offering at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts

• Kevin Berry talks to twice Oscar-nominated author William Nicholson about a lifetime of writing, and finds out why it took bankers’ bonuses to make him pick up his pen again

• Trained as an actor but now best known as a director, Phil Wilmott says it’s time more directors got back up on the stage

• Maggie Brown on how Channel 4 has tapped into the lucrative 16-34 age brackets with The Inbetweeners and Skins

• Mark Shenton on the integrity of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group’s management of its theatres

• Training: Susan Elkin talks to Steve Morely, head of drama at City of London School for Girls, about his passion for nurturing youthful creativity and putting it back at the centre of school dramas

The Stage is available for £1.50 from most major newsagents. For subscription information, see http://www.thestage.co.uk/subscribe/

Posted by Scott Matthewman at 12:00 PM | Permalink

This week’s issue of The Stage celebrates 25 years of Les Miserables, the longest running musical of all time. Mark Shenton looks back on the history of a show that has been voted Britain’s favourite musical.

Who would have guessed it when the show premiered at the Barbican was immediately dubbed The Glums by the late Jack Tinker, then critic of the Daily Mail. Other critics were even more forceful - “a load of sentimental old tosh”, one labelled it, “a witless and synthetic entertainment”, said another.

We also talk to the five actors who played the lead roles of Valjean and Javert in its three anniversary productions: John Owen-Jones, Earl Carpenter, Simon Bowman, Alfie Boe and Norm Lewis.

As a newcomer to musical theatre, that is exacly what Alfie Boe - the Blackpool-born international opera star who played the role of Valjean in the O2 concert - discovered when he briefly joined the company of the show at the Queen’s beforehand. “I’ve never been so welcomed in my life by any company before as much as this one - it’s beautiful, it really is, and I don’t want to leave,” he sad, speaking backstage at the Queen’s.

And we plunder the archives from 1985, from The Stage’s former editor Peter Hepple reviewing the Barbican production, discussion of the gulf between critical and popular reception, and more.

If you are looking for the right space to hone your performances, our rehearsal rooms guide — including advice on how to find a suitable spot and selected listings — might make it easier

Also this week:

• In the second of our Greatest Stage Actor profiles, Anthony Field looks at the theatrical career of Sir John Gielgud. Read more at our website

• Dear John: In the era of The X Factor, is it possible to make an independent singer-songwriter career work without major label backing?

• BBC daytime controller Liam Keelan hates the view that his schedule is made up of collectable hunting and property shows. Ben Dowell finds out how investment in drama, such as Moving On and The Indian Doctor, is restoring credibility to the slot

• Now entering its ninth year, the Brighton Comedy Festival continues to bring in the audiences. Tony Cooke talks to founder William Burdett-Coutts about sponsorship, smiling and future success

• Backstage: Barbara Eifler reviews some helpful guides for theatrical beginners that may also be invaluable for old hands

The Stage is available from major newsganets for £1.50. For subscription deals, visit http://www.thestage.co.uk/subscribe/

Posted by Scott Matthewman at 3:13 PM | Permalink