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Why star casting in theatre isn't the answer
Casting well-known names from TV or film has become a sure-fire way of generating ticket sales. But it blinds us to the true depth and breadth of British theatre
Although theatre reviewing has many perks and pleasures, it's inherently anti-social: critics usually start work at a time when their family and friends are just stopping.
One solution is to have a partner who is also a drama critic, although that arrangement can bring its own problems, as described in Ruth Leon's eye-popping memoir of her marriage to the late Sheridan Morley, But What Comes After?
Another way of dealing with your unavailability in the evenings is to buy a second ticket (usually only one is offered for free) and combine work with acquaintance-maintenance. But while the most publicised shows will, in my experience, be claimed almost as soon as they're offered, other invitations are frequently met with a difficult question: "Who's in it?"
It's a problem for theatre. Clearly, at a time of high ticket prices and severely reduced discretionary income, there is a commercial imperative to cast stars. Producers are looking for names who, in the parlance, can "open a show", which means to attract a healthy box-office advance as soon as the show is advertised, before anything else is known.
The West End revival of Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval, which opened last week, is a good example of such celebrity insurance. The above-the-title trio all have high-level television exposure: Nigel Harman in EastEnders and Hotel Babylon, Ashley Jensen through Extras and Ugly Betty, and Rob Brydon from a huge number of TV hosting and acting roles. So many people were keen to claim my second ticket that my self-esteem rocketed.
However, in this case, the selections all have artistic as well as financial logic. Jensen and Harman have significant theatre credentials, while Brydon, although making his London stage acting debut, has approached the transition methodically (appearing in a play, The Painkiller, at the Lyric Belfast last year) and proves to be perfect casting, bringing to the role of amateur musical director Dafydd ap Llewelyn a more precise sense of Welshness than is usually the case.
It can also reasonably be argued that the structure of most plays and musicals inherently creates a star system: there will generally be one or two roles within a piece that demand vastly greater efforts of transformation, empathy, memory and stamina. These parts - so producers and people who are picky about accepting theatre tickets would argue - are the theatrical equivalent of the 100 metres or the Ryder Cup; those who undertake them should be those at the top of their profession.
The difficulty, though, is that the best actors may not always be the most famous. Michael Bryant (1928-2002) was one of the most consistently brilliant performers in the history of the National theatre, a member of its company for a quarter of a century. But being by temperament always more of a Polonius and Gloucester than a Hamlet and Lear, and sparing in his TV and film appearances, he could never have "opened a show" in the West End and his career was only sustainable within subsidised theatre.
Even in state-funded productions, there can be an invidious pressure for recognisability. Two of the recent productions for which I struggled to find company were The Doctor's Dilemma at the National and Macbeth at the Sheffield Crucible. The National's Shaw revival contained a large number of high-class character actors in the Bryant mould - including Aden Gillett, David Calder, Robert Portal and Malcolm Sinclair - but no one with a single well-known TV role that creates an immediate fanbase. The Macbeth in Sheffield was Geoffrey Streatfeild, an accomplished young RSC actor who is yet to achieve wider name recognition.
As posters will doubtless be quick to point out, it may be that my personality or personal hygiene is the true cause of these solitary evenings, but I think that it's become increasingly expected (among both producers and audiences) for well-known names and faces to take leading roles. This is partly because of the inevitable diminution of risk during a recession, but also because of the commendable willingness of screen-hot stars such as Helen Mirren and Dominic West to play Phèdre at the National or Iago in Sheffield.
But one of the strengths of the British acting profession is its breadth and depth - and theatre-goers who only want to see stars are missing out on more than the chance of a half-time drink with me.
-- Mark Lawson for The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/oct/03/star-casting-theatre?CMP=twt_fd
Casting well-known names from TV or film has become a sure-fire way of generating ticket sales. But it blinds us to the true depth and breadth of British theatre
Although theatre reviewing has many perks and pleasures, it's inherently anti-social: critics usually start work at a time when their family and friends are just stopping.
One solution is to have a partner who is also a drama critic, although that arrangement can bring its own problems, as described in Ruth Leon's eye-popping memoir of her marriage to the late Sheridan Morley, But What Comes After?
Another way of dealing with your unavailability in the evenings is to buy a second ticket (usually only one is offered for free) and combine work with acquaintance-maintenance. But while the most publicised shows will, in my experience, be claimed almost as soon as they're offered, other invitations are frequently met with a difficult question: "Who's in it?"
It's a problem for theatre. Clearly, at a time of high ticket prices and severely reduced discretionary income, there is a commercial imperative to cast stars. Producers are looking for names who, in the parlance, can "open a show", which means to attract a healthy box-office advance as soon as the show is advertised, before anything else is known.
The West End revival of Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval, which opened last week, is a good example of such celebrity insurance. The above-the-title trio all have high-level television exposure: Nigel Harman in EastEnders and Hotel Babylon, Ashley Jensen through Extras and Ugly Betty, and Rob Brydon from a huge number of TV hosting and acting roles. So many people were keen to claim my second ticket that my self-esteem rocketed.
However, in this case, the selections all have artistic as well as financial logic. Jensen and Harman have significant theatre credentials, while Brydon, although making his London stage acting debut, has approached the transition methodically (appearing in a play, The Painkiller, at the Lyric Belfast last year) and proves to be perfect casting, bringing to the role of amateur musical director Dafydd ap Llewelyn a more precise sense of Welshness than is usually the case.
It can also reasonably be argued that the structure of most plays and musicals inherently creates a star system: there will generally be one or two roles within a piece that demand vastly greater efforts of transformation, empathy, memory and stamina. These parts - so producers and people who are picky about accepting theatre tickets would argue - are the theatrical equivalent of the 100 metres or the Ryder Cup; those who undertake them should be those at the top of their profession.
The difficulty, though, is that the best actors may not always be the most famous. Michael Bryant (1928-2002) was one of the most consistently brilliant performers in the history of the National theatre, a member of its company for a quarter of a century. But being by temperament always more of a Polonius and Gloucester than a Hamlet and Lear, and sparing in his TV and film appearances, he could never have "opened a show" in the West End and his career was only sustainable within subsidised theatre.
Even in state-funded productions, there can be an invidious pressure for recognisability. Two of the recent productions for which I struggled to find company were The Doctor's Dilemma at the National and Macbeth at the Sheffield Crucible. The National's Shaw revival contained a large number of high-class character actors in the Bryant mould - including Aden Gillett, David Calder, Robert Portal and Malcolm Sinclair - but no one with a single well-known TV role that creates an immediate fanbase. The Macbeth in Sheffield was Geoffrey Streatfeild, an accomplished young RSC actor who is yet to achieve wider name recognition.
As posters will doubtless be quick to point out, it may be that my personality or personal hygiene is the true cause of these solitary evenings, but I think that it's become increasingly expected (among both producers and audiences) for well-known names and faces to take leading roles. This is partly because of the inevitable diminution of risk during a recession, but also because of the commendable willingness of screen-hot stars such as Helen Mirren and Dominic West to play Phèdre at the National or Iago in Sheffield.
But one of the strengths of the British acting profession is its breadth and depth - and theatre-goers who only want to see stars are missing out on more than the chance of a half-time drink with me.
-- Mark Lawson for The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/oct/03/star-casting-theatre?CMP=twt_fd