November 2009 Archives

So, culture secretary Ben Bradshaw is calling for a popular uprising among actors to help pre-emptively oust a Tory government.

According to a report in The Guardian, Bradshaw complained at a speech earlier this week:

“We need a few more luvvies to be jumping up and down about it because that is not happening at the moment. I am trying to provoke them into doing it.”

Apparently, actors aren’t being vocal enough about how awful it would be for everyone if a Tory government wins the next election.

As we revealed yesterday, Ambassador Theatre Group has completed the £90m purchase of Live Nation’s UK theatres.

It’s a massive deal - in every sense. The theatre equivalent of Sainsbury’s buying Tesco, if you like. Certainly it’s the biggest theatre sale of at least the last decade and it makes ATG the biggest theatre operator of the modern era.

Digital Theatre, a new pay-per-view online video site that streams theatre shows onto your computer, launched last week. I’ve already written about it here and here, but I’ve now finally sat down and watched the company’s first available download - Far From the Madding Crowd - so I thought I’d share my thoughts and see if anyone else out there would like to share theirs.