Billington and Hytner Slap Backs
Only at the very end of his gently submissive interrogation of Michael Billington at a National Theatre platform event to plug his State of the Nation tome did Nicholas Hytner throw away the script and come clean: he refuted entirely the idea that drama tends to adopt the liberal consensus.
And then in a wonderful fit of exasperation, he said the truth: there are not enough good plays being written to merit being put on. He therefore seemed to imply that if someone writes a half-way decent good play, it will, inevitably, be put on.
This was of not much interest to the actresses in the audience who had heard Billybong not choose the best actress he had ever seen. He chose Olivier as the best actor. But actress? He was schtum. Eileen Atkins, Sian Phillips and Sian Thomas — three of our finest — drew a corporate sigh of relief. If he’d mentioned Peggy Ashcroft it would have been fine. Judi and Maggie references might have caused a mini-riot.
David Hare said at the after-party that Hytner had said more than Billybong: in the manner of a soccer analyst, he had counted out 51 per cent possession over 49 per cent and joshingly accused Hytner of wanting to be interviewed himself more than he wanted to interview the man of the moment. This was a bit rich, given Hytner’s dedication to Hare’s next new play.
In fact, what was so good about the encounter was that it did proceed like a relaxed converation at the dinner table. My own reaction to the cosy cleverness of the chat, and indeed the book, which is a masterpiece in its way, is that two big issues have been sidled past: sponsorship and populism.
Both chaps agreed that “there is no downside to subsidy at all” when obviously there must be: just look at the executive/managerial command of public funds and the disgrace of a cheap ticket scheme that depends on sponsors rather than the investment of the taxpayer. Who is subsidy for — the audience or the artists?
And sponsorship — where Nick’s own mother is a prime mover — has smoothed paths, drawn teeth and castrated the radical agenda of all the big theatres. Why are there no new plays attacking the idea of sponsorship in a subsidised market? Why are there no new plays attacking Hytner, Hare and indeed Billington?
Instead of which, we got bromide about multiculturalism and a creeping unease with the “irrational theatre” of the Masque of the Red Death, one of the worst pieces of crap non-theatre ever perpetrated but here elevated as some sort of touchstone in a debate about “sensory” properties of the art form.
And populism? Not even fingered. The real national theatre of the 1980s was the musical, but as Billington discounts Cats, Les Miserables and Phantom in his pseudo-Marxian thesis of the innovative rock musical as a form of Thatcherite expression, the subject was a non-starter.
Still, it was a famous evening, even if Billingspoon’s belated espousal of Alan Ayckbourn and Mike Leigh was shamefully let slip by, as indeed was his too familiar references to playwrights by their first names. Michael Frayn must have wondered if “Michael” meant him or Barrett or Morpurgo or perhaps even Wilcox. There’s only one “Tom” but “Alan” was either Ayckbourn or Bennett.
Finally, both Hytner and Billington agreed that the writer is at the centre of our theatre and always will be. And Ballyhoo had a lovely metaphor to explain why our theatre was so successful. It was because the country was such a failure. Great Britain is in fact Little Britain and where once, in days of Empire, we turned up to political high tables in the role of Hamlet, these days we were stuck with Osric. This gave state-of-the-nation writers their real subject.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
“the Masque of the Red Death, one of the worst pieces of crap non-theatre ever perpetrated”
…I really couldn’t let that one go. It’s simply outrageous; a massive statement made without any justification (or, seemingly, significance within the narrative of the blog overall) other than a bitterly-executed kick at a particular strand of a theatre form so far removed from what you believe to be the norm, that there is (just possibly) the possibility that you may have failed to understand it. And to use the word ‘perpetrated’ in a pejorative context is more adolescent in tone that I’m sure you aimed for.
All of which would be absolutely fine if you, Michael, could be replied upon for objectivity, but this fails to be the case. Didn’t you give the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s pedestrian schedule-filler Whistle Down The Wind an impressive four stars a few years back, when it was at the Palace? (It may have even been five.) And in a previous piece about Billington’s book, you seemed agrieved at the lack of Billington’s mention of the crucial role that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar played in the context of post-war British theatre. Furthermore, in this piece above, you highlight Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, and also Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom Of The Opera as true pieces to champion and debate in a retrospective cultural context. Now, which theatre figure are you the biographer for again, Mr Coveney?
My point is that the artistry and challenge involved in a piece such as Punchdrunk’s is doubtless equal to the original creative processes inherent in mounting any of the mega-musical pieces you have championed. (Although the carbon-copy global marketing pile-ups that they have become is another matter altogether.) But to negate one, whilst championing the other smacks of toady old-boys’ sycophancy and subjectivity that isn’t becoming in such a significant and (generally) fair critic. Tsk tsk, Mr Coveney.
November 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Well, blimey, we’ll just have to disagree, Matthew, on what constitutes artistry and challenge in the theatre. And anyone who ever saw the Living Theatre, or Joe Chaikin’s Open Theatre, or the work of the great Polish directors Jerzy Grotowski and Konrad Swinarski will know why I think so little of Punchdrunk’s “environmental” semi-fascist non-theatre. I think you should grow up, too, on the ALW connection. I’m not his spokesman. Nor was my now very out of date biography an official one. I just call it how I see it and I try not to share the usual knee-jerk reactions prevalent on ALW, Sondheim. Les Mis, Antony Sher, “the West End” or any other area of our contemporary theatre.
November 20th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
You’ll have to forgive me this question. I am from Toronto Canada, and so I am not that much in touch with drama in England, although as it happens I have been to the West End 2 times in the past 3 years. But I am at a loss as to what you mean by your comments about England’s greatest actresses. I do know Eileen Atkins, Sian Phillips, and Peggy Ashcroft. Not sure about Sian Thomas. But does your reference to Judi Dench and Maggie Smith mean that they are not held in high critical esteem? Or perhaps Mr Hytner (is that whom you were talking about?) is famous for never giving either of those ladies a favourable review?
Beside the point, but I remember so well the seasons at Canada’s Stratford Festival when Maggie Smith joined the company, often partnered with Brian Bedford, and gave wonderful performances in so many roles. My favourite was her Rosalind in As You Like It with Bedford as Jaques. An incandescent production.
I hope to be back in London again at the end of 2008, especially if the National revives War Horse for a second season.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:52 am
Sorry for the confusion, Robert. It was an attempt at a joke had Billington selected one of the obvious contenders for “great actress” status. All of the three actresses I mention have indeed given notable performances at the National. I never saw any of Maggie Smith’s performances in Stratford Ontario, but we certainly read about them here. Of her Rosalind, Bernard Levin said: “She spoke the epilogue like a chime of golden bells. But what she looked like as she did so I cannot tell you; for I saw it through eyes curtained with tears of joy.”