Boyd Takes a Stand
It was all very civilised and low-key at the RSC’s update and “plans for next year” bash in the Hospital Club today.
The club is a media haven in Endell Street, Covent Garden, which must have cost a small fortune to hire, especially as we assembled in the Forest Room, which looked like Bill Dudley’s next “virtual” design of As You Like It, all photographic wrap-around trees and yellow lighting.
In the stated avalanche of information and good intentions, one felt too overwhelmed to wonder, yet again, what the hell is going on.
Michael Boyd and his associate David Farr wore their shirts outside their trousers, not a good sign, and Farr– who walked out on commitments to the Bristol Old Vic and the Lyric, Hammersmith in order, finally, to join the RSC – confirmed his “adaptability” with obsequious remarks in Boyd’s direction.
The worrying thing about Farr is that he seems to be at the RSC to bring in other companies rather than identify his own reason for being there.
He also mumbled about “excellence” and the fact that new plays are often made up in the rehearsal room, as if that was anything new or remotely radical.
It now emerges that the funding campaign for the new theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon – still £10m short on an overall figure of £113m – is the excuse for the lack of any identifiable London home for the company.
But the lack of a London base is completely the result of the company leaving the Barbican in a silly huff, but still they bumble on with West End connections and the kindness of strangers. And the public’s confusion is turning to blank indifference.
By the time the RSC is up and running in London with Shakespeare, they will probably be playing second fiddle to the Globe and Regent’s Park.
Boyd touchingly reported that he’d been to a rehearsal of his own production of As You Like It yesterday (some mistake, there, surely) and found that “we’re changing, we’re growing.”
And he said, rather alarmingly, that Rupert Goold would take Romeo and Juliet by the scruff of the neck “and do something brilliant with it.”
On the plus side, Boyd wants a “culture change” in his ensemble and youth theatre work; he seeks to activate some lurking collaborative explosion between the RSC and the thriving amateur theatre movement; and he confirmed that the temporarily lost Elizabethan and Jacobean repertoire will “come screaming back” into the re-opened Swan.
He’s also interested in exploring new ways of “capturing” RSC work on screen and said the approach needed to be as new and fresh as that which resulted in Tis’Was, the kid’s TV show in the 1970s and The Big Breakfast in the 1990s…nice idea, but still, oh dear…
October 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Not sure why you’re so unkeen on Farr. The stuff he has done for the RSC has often been first-rate. But in any event it is unfair and at best misleading and sly to say that he “walked out on commitments” to Bristol and Lyric. He left jobs for other jobs. People do. More should.
October 9th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I must applaud the scepticism shown by Mr Coveney towards David Farr. Some years ago - whenever the timing was that Messrs Farr and Reade took over the running of Bristol Old Vic - Mr Farr was guilty of making the most irresponsible, untrue and arrogant remarks concerning the previous regime at the Old Vic. I had worked as an actor during the stewardship of Andy Hay as the previous Artistic Director, and the productions on which I worked were of the highest standards and ones which I am proud to have been associated with. Andy Hay sweated blood to keep the theatre in Bristol not only alive but thriving. His regime is to be celebrated. When I therefore came across Mr Farrs remarks - basically slagging Andy off, setting himself and his colleague as the Messiahs would would come to the rescue of theatre in Bristol - reinventing the theatrical wheel really, I had to protest. I wrote a letter to “The Stage” outlining the appalling dishonesty of Mr Farr’s remarks, and demanding a public apology on Andy Hay’s behalf. So far - total silence from Mr Farr. The irony of course is that Mr Farr and Mr Reade presided over the closure and almost criminal demise of Bristol Old Vic. Well done David and Simon - good work all round! So Hamish - maybe Mr Coveney, like me, has a healthy scepticism pointed in the right direction.