Do we need new theatres?

Maureen Lipman was challenged by the i's Susie Mesure earlier this month with that question. The interview took place in London's newest venue, Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, and as the actress acknowledged, it's a good question. We need dramatic performances, but do we need more big buildings to sop up arts funding in repainted moldings and reupholstered seats as though red velvet is integral to community culture?  Enterprising theatre companies large and small are moving to site-specific performances, to open-air and street theatre, to performances in pubs and rural halls and shop doorways,  but it seems in the eyes of funders, theatre means not a show but a building.

The point Maureen Lipman was making was that arts ministers ~ including the current Culture Secretary Maria Miller who she describes as a “nightmare” ~ know nothing about art, and governments would rather invest in buildings than the people who actually create art.

“We never seem to have an arts minister who knows the slightest thing about it. They seem to pick someone on the grounds that they were in a school play. Who was the last arts secretary who actually bothered to go to the theatre I wonder? So we always fall foul of the cuts.”

So her response when challenged about the virtues of opening a new playhouse when so many other arts ventures are struggling is agreement: “ I have a theory that you can always get money for buildings, but not for people. That applies to hospitals and schools. Or The Shard. But can you get money for people? No. They’re taking grants away from all the existing companies… There are more places to work, but no reps: nowhere to learn your trade."

The interview concludes in paradox: “Art is essential in a society but it’s the easiest thing to cut because if you cut it down, if you repress it, it will come out at the sides, like a pressure cooker. So there will always be art.”