There are only a handful of theatres beyond London that can now routinely count on a mass showing of national critics - I was surprised earlier this year when I went to see the opening of the Manchester Glass Menagerie with Brenda Blethyn (in a production that is soon to be revived for a national tour) that only Sam Marlowe and John Peter, for The Times and Sunday Times respectively, were there, too, though local stringers for The Observer and The Independent, namely Clare Brennan and Lynne Walker (whom I do not know and therefore would not have recognised) also filed reviews, and Lyn Gardner obviously went on another night for The Guardian.
Nowadays, however, it’s primarily Stratford-upon-Avon and Chichester only that can count on getting most of the big guns out (and perhaps my gun just isn’t big enough, but I have been negligent about getting to Chichester at all this year so far, though am heading there next week to finally catch Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Music Man, even as The Circle and the Ronald Harwood double-bill of Taking Sides and Collaboration are also about to open, so I’ll be chasing my tail on those, though The Circle is already booked for a national tour after Chichester, so I’ll catch it then).
You can be sure, of course, that we’ll all be at Stratford for the RSC opening of the David Tennant Hamlet on August 5, even if it means interrupting the early days of the Edinburgh Fringe for some.
This may possibly be a discourtesy on the part of the RSC for an event that has long been in the annual diary, but then you could equally argue that Edinburgh doesn’t have the prerogative on critical coverage during August, and gets quite enough as it is. I gather from my colleagues Benedict Nightingale and Kate Bassett that they’re going to go to Edinburgh for the weekend after next, then head back to Stratford. (I’m doing it the other way around: I’ll go to Stratford on the Tuesday, then immediately head to Edinburgh the next morning).
We could naturally simply sit it all out and wait for everything to come to us - the best of Edinburgh routinely heads south (even if, in the case of Blackwatch, it took nearly two years to get to us). Hamlet is, of course, already coming to the Novello (though curiously isn’t on the website for landlords Delfont Mackintosh yet - the only Hamlet you’ll find there is the Jude Law one at the Donmar, though that may be is because it is not booking to the general public yet), but then this is a major theatrical event that it is our job to cover.
Bath Theatre Royal have also found a crafty way to turn themselves into a theatrical event, too: for the last six years they’ve been offering a summer residency to the Peter Hall Company, and while much of this, too, eventually comes to London, too (such as the current Old Vic Pygmalion from last year’s season), they manage to get a strong critical showing by bunching some of their openings together, with one show on Tuesday night, then another two yesterday.
That requires some significant critical commitment of time and effort: hats off to Michael Billington (who actually took the train to Bath on Tuesday, then went home overnight before returning by car for yesterday’s double bill, and that after having been to Scarborough for a new Alan Ayckbourn play on Monday, too - all while suffering from a heavy head cold), Charles Spencer, Benedict Nightingale, Quentin Letts, Rhoda Koenig, Ian Shuttleworth and Georgina Brown (who at least didn’t have far to go, since she has a home in Bath) for collecting the complete set. I only saw the two yesterday; and three more critics - Nicholas de Jongh, Susannah Clapp and Kate Bassett - only turned up for the one last night, which may be a question of space as much as time, since they wouldn’t necessarily have the column inches to write them up.
Actually, for Benedict and me - sitting behind me last night and in front of me at Richmond on Monday - it was a week when Bath loomed large, since the show we were seeing at Richmond was also a Theatre Royal originated show: a tour of Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking. Danny Moar, Bath Theatre Royal’s director as well as producer for the Peter Hall Company 2008 season, has been putting this independent, completely unsubsidised theatre truly on the producing map, and it is fact under Bath’s auspices that the aforementioned Royal Exchange production of The Glass Menagerie will also be touring, while Born in the Gardens, the opening of which I missed on Tuesday and the still-to-open Peter Hall Company revival of Alan Bennett’s Enjoy are both also going to have an autumn tours.
Touring, of course, is the lifeblood of regional theatre; and while the West End may be the showcase that they aspire to - and Bath has proved with eight transfers for Peter Hall directed shows in the last six years - the Theatre Royal has been providing an increasingly significant base for providing a launch pad to number one tours, as well as attracting number one critics to see them now. The resources and resourcefulness is amazing, as well: how many regional producing theatres could offer a director like Hall the luxury of a cast of 19 actors for last night’s adaptation of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady? That may, it turns out, have been an expense too far in terms of artistic return on the investment; but the fact that Bath is making it at all still has to be commended, even as we struggled through watching the show itself.
And finally and best of all: while it is always a pleasure to get out of London, especially on the kind of sunny summery days like the one we had yesterday, it’s a worry that we’re going to swap the heat of the streets for a stuffy, overheated, fading old theatre. Yet Bath Theatre Royal - one of the oldest working theatres in the country, first established on this site in 1805 though that theatre burnt down in 1862 and the current one dates from 1863 - is not only in stunning physical condition, but even has good (and working!) air-conditioning. They’ve recently refurbished the Ustinov studio space, too - and added the brand-new Egg Theatre for children and young people. Bath not only provides a model for regional producing, but also for house management and development. It is a living inspiration: of course it benefits from drawing on a large and loyal local audience; but they are surely responding, too, to the investment and confidence that the theatre exudes, too.
"We could naturally simply sit it all out and wait for everything to come to us - the best of Edinburgh routinely heads south."
First of all - How lazy! And also, you shouldn't expect that every regional theatre aspires to the West End and that only the best plays will make it down south. That's so ignorant. Wonderful theatre happens in house all over the country, and sometimes never gets to tour, let alone actually wants to. So yes, I think you should make the effort to go North, no questions asked, and then maybe your good critiques will actually help people think that as audiences they should aspire to travel elsewhere for a different experience, rather than just sit tight and hope some of it travels south.
There is more to theatre in Scotland than the Edinburgh Festival, lots more. You should check out the Eden Court in Inverness or the Citizens' and the Tron in Glasgow. Far too few reviews appear in *national* press about plays outside London and the South East.
The South isn't the centre of the universe, however it may like to think so.
I wish professional companies would travel further south than London. Those of us in Kent are ill served by being "close" to London as it is expected that we will willingly travel to that foul and loathsome city and expend large quantities of cash travelling there by train or coach and fork out for overpriced hotel rooms due to the fact that trains would not be available home after the performance. Kent is NOT part of London and we have some good theatres which could take on a professional production which chose to tour such as the RSC. Please note though that Brighton (which the RSC will be travelling to for Romeo and Juliet) for us Kent residents is as awkward to get to as London is to those of us in central Kent. Any chance the RSC could come to the county Town (Maidstone) or to Canterbury or Tunbridge Wells? We don't all love London - cultured people do live outside of London too and would like to be considered - please?