On April 2nd 2020, the National Theatre streamed “one of the most joyously laugh-out-loud shows of the last decade”, One Man Two Guvnors, free to everyone through YouTube. It launched the National Theatre’s ‘At Home’ season of plays, entertaining the nation, and the world, during the first global wave of the pandemic. Amidst that anxious, confusing, and lonely period, theatre stepped up, and brought a splash of magic, and collective experience, back to our isolation.
Above: One Man Two Guvnors trailer for NT's online launch.
Theatre nourished our bruised souls, and we flocked to it in extraordinary numbers. By the end of the NT’s ‘At Home’ season, their productions had tallied fifteen million views. Had we attended in person, the Olivier’s 1150 seats would have been filled every night for 35 years. There is clearly a tremendous demand for theatre, and the online medium made it available and accessible to a huge audience overnight. The potential for an online theatrical revolution was explosive – but did it materialise?
Evaluating the medium as an Intersectional Critic, and a Conscious Spectator, the results were decidedly mixed. While some theatres evolved, others chose to bring their elitism with them into this new space.
Traditionally, theatre audiences are filtered by means. Those who are in a position to afford the best seats are able to access them; our resources dictate the quality of our experience. The online medium held such promise for equality in this regard, it was thrilling to contemplate. Surely here, where we would unquestionably all have the same view of the productions, ticket prices would equalise?
Ah, such naiveté.
Dynamic pricing is best known in the holiday industry: beach houses are much cheaper to rent in winter than in summer, flights leap up in price over school holidays. Theatres are increasingly adopting dynamic pricing, too. Even the National Theatre, who receive an annual Arts Council grant of close to £17 million, pre-pandemic had begun increasing their prices when demand for tickets built. While I have made reluctant peace with pricey summer beach bungalows, sitting in a theatre where last week the same ticket (or indeed an even better seat) would have cost half as much seems like a perverse kind of punishment.
Consider, theatres already offer paid members prior access to cheaper tickets. Effectively, if you cannot afford membership, you’ll inevitably pay more per ticket as standard. If you are outside the theatre community and only learn of a new play that captures your interest late in the run, you may have to pay considerably more for a ticket than someone who booked in advance for the same exact seat. At which point, that ticket may now be prohibitively expensive. This culture of in-group privilege is deeply problematic. If theatres truly wish to cultivate new audiences, dynamic pricing must be abandoned. And here – in this online revolution – was the golden opportunity. Or so I thought.
The Old Vic, admittedly one of the most elite theatres in the UK, made a very different choice to the National Theatre. They decided to streamed live performances from the Old Vic stage to virtual audiences through the (now ubiquitous) Zoom. In addition to charging for the ticket (which I fully support) - the Old Vic decided to impose dynamic pricing on their tickets. Now members had advance access to the cheapest tickets which offered an identical experience to the more expensive ones offered days later to the public. Indeed, they limited their cheaper tickets by number in order to impose dynamic pricing, so tickets became increasingly expensive as these more economical tickets sold out – a literal impossibility online.
I must pause here to emphasise that I fully support paying for online theatre. As magnanimous as the NT’s At Home season was, their hope was placed on donations which didn’t materialise in anything like what might be considered ‘fair’. Creatives involved in those productions deserved better from us. Perhaps in defence of the public, it must also be acknowledged that this was a period of extreme economic uncertainty, in addition to the palpable fear of an unknown contagion. Nonetheless, the NT discovered what Fringe performers have long known – the public massively undervalue the creative industry.
The National Theatre ultimately shifted gear and moved their productions to an online subscription service, which could also be pay-per-view. Rental prices range from £5.99 - £7.99 per production, an immensely fair fee in my opinion. I sincerely hope this online evolution brings theatre to new audiences - and new audiences to the theatre.
The digitisation of theatre, whether recorded or live streamed has brought about innovation, and, in some areas, greater inclusivity as well. Considerably cheaper to produce than live theatre, this medium has provided a platform for artists who might otherwise not have their work developed. Exciting, provocative, productions from the last year have included: The Protest (Bush Theatre), audio play 846 (Stratford East), and Shifting Tides (Almeida).
Another thrilling development in online theatre was the explosive move to inclusive, multi-national productions with The Show Must Go Online. In this particular revolution - 'fringe' theatre set an extraordinarily high bar that mainstream theatre falls pitifully short of.
Director / Creator Rob Myles started this theatrical revolution in a uniquely twenty-first century way - he tweeted.
It's fair to say, people were interested!
Rob's creation, The Show Must Go Online, became a global movement "committed to making Shakespeare for everyone, for free, forever".
To ensure Shakespeare really was for everyone, Rob enlisted a couple of friends (including a data scientist) to support him in devising inclusive hiring practices, "because there are ways that you can so easily exclude people without even realizing that you’re doing it just from how you design forms". HELL YES!
Their all-female and non-binary production of Macbeth, and their all global majority production of Antony and Cleopatra stand out as examples of diversity in action, but throughout all of the productions inclusivity is placed at the centre of their working ethos. If only more theatres and casting teams were acting similarly.
Live streamed through Zoom in real time, these productions are extraordinarily innovative. From make-shit props to overlapping dialogue (cunningly circumventing Zoom's lag), they feel viscerally urgent and of our time. Professional actors perform alongside novices, each from their own lockdown location. Across time zones and even continents, each play's cast work together to bring these texts to life online.
A thrilling experiment, but I do have one gripe - 'free' theatre is only free to the audience. It costs the creatives to give of their time and talent. Although donations were taken, and actors could opt-in to a 'hardship fund' to receive a share of those donations, ultimately this undervalues creatives. Anyone know a plumber willing to work for donations? If so, please do send them my way, I would be delighted to offer them the opportunity to do some work for me.
Inclusivity isn't only about diversifying, it is about valuing diversity, skill, talent, and creativity. It is time we stood united as an industry to eradicate 'working for free'. Working costs - it is not free to workers.
Fifteen million people watched the National's free theatre through YouTube. How much did they 'earn' in donations? A paltry £350 000. Barely 43p per stream.
It is time to demand the public acknowledge the value creative industries contribute to our lives. Could we really imagine lockdown without them?