“I have never looked forward to a theatrical event more than Pinter in Krapp’s Last Tape”, wrote Paul Taylor in a preview piece in The Independent about Samuel Beckett last week, and in today’s review of the production that has now opened at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs, The Guardian’s Michael Billington comments, “It is easier to get a cup final ticket than one for Harold Pinter’s performance in the Theatre Upstairs.”
And there’s the problem – it’s in the tiny Theatre Upstairs, and only on for 10 scheduled nights in all. Last Friday’s performance was apparently lost when the theatre had to be evacuated, so that means that, with an audience of just 80 per performance, a total of just 720 will see this landmark performance. No wonder the entire run sold out in a reported 16 minutes. Is there a place for such elitism in a publicly subsidised theatre?
Certainly Saturday’s press night was probably the most rarefied opening I’ve ever been at: once the press were crowded in (after drinks and very good canapés beforehand), the rest of the tiny audience were mostly well-known faces, from Peter Hall and Kristin Scott Thomas to Samuel West, accompanied by playwright Laura Wade, as well as Mark Rylance and Bill Paterson (whose wife Hildegard Bechtler designed the production). I’m thrilled, of course, to have been among them; but also – as we were disgorged after the disquieting, intense performance onto the street just 45 minutes later – I also wondered what exactly the point of making this event so exclusive was. Couldn’t it have been done in the main house? Perhaps Pinter didn’t want to do it there. Or for a longer run? But then Pinter’s health may not have permitted it. We should be grateful that he’s doing it at all, I suppose, but the great reviews he has now duly received adds insult to the injury of all those who can’t actually see it.
Meanwhile, another rather quirkily ‘exclusive’ theatrical event saw the presentation of this year’s TMA Theatre Awards at Hampstead Theatre last night. With just 325 seats for nominees, presenters and guests – but the widest potential reach of any theatre award in the calendar, since it covers productions throughout the UK – it seems weird to confine it in such a small venue. Yet the nominees and winners are also drawn up from a weird “democratic” process that sees nearly 200 members of the public invited to judge more than 1,000 productions around the country, whose recommendations produce a shortlist of potential nominees, from which a professional panel then vote on the winners. While the theatre panel includes the very conscientious second string critics of the Daily Telegraph and Times – Dominic Cavendish and Sam Marlowe respectively – joined by Belfast’s Grania McFadden and Scotland-based Mark Fisher, I wonder if they all managed to see all of the nominated shows to draw their winners from?
Out of thirty nominations in the theatre categories, I surprised myself that I’d seen 14 of them, including all three of the nominees for each of the Best Performance in a Musical and Best Touring Production categories, and two each of the Best New Play and Best Musical Production nominees. But while my own limited experience of work outside London had included some of the nominations at Sheffield, Leicester, Derby and on tour, I’d actually managed to see most of them in London – the two best new play nominees I’d seen were only seen here (at Hampstead and the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs), two of the Best Touring Production nominees had come to Soho and the National respectively, while Road to Nowhere (winner of the Best Musical Production) was seen only at the Lyric Hammersmith. All of which suggests an inevitable metropolitan bias.
Since these awards are specifically designed to reflect the best of British theatre from throughout the country, it seems disappointing that London therefore features so strongly. Surely there are enough London-based awards – the Olivier, Standard and Critics’ Circle (which though drawn from a vote of members nationally, is inevitably London-centric too) – to make the TMA Awards reflect their far wider constituency more fully.
TMA interesting for Scottish Theatregoers. I was a panelist for 2 years a while back, and enjoyed sending ratings in for (mainly Scottish) theatre.
But with Scotland's Theatre doing its own critics awards - awards which the audience have absolutely no input whatsoever, despite my suggesting it - there are now very few places in Scotland operating the TMA system.
It is a pity, as there is a lot of good theatre going on in Scotland, and it is a shame that really first class productions can slip through the national TMA net.
So, good that Mark Fisher is there, and congratulations to all winners, including Wolves in the Walls, which I did see and liked.
Re Pinter's Beckett: I'm wondering if the Court is planning to record his performance. It was predictably an event worth preserving - and then perhaps the rest of us can see it...