NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
TONY PALMER
Theatrical events, and by these I don't just mean the BBC annual works outing al the Albert Hall last week, are lolloping into view with ever-increasing frequency these days, now that the full effects of Lord Eccles are upon us. Up in Scotland, for example, towns such as Dumbarton, Mussel' burgh, Airdrie, Motherwell and Arbroath have spent during the last five years in excess of £2 million on new garrisons for the arts. The one thing these lonely cultural outposts have lacked is goodies to display and so this week it was announced that new national touring theatre company called 'The Stage Company of Scotland' is being formed. Scottish Tv are thinking about it and the Scottish Arts Council arc thinking. Both are unlikely to do very much. Meanwhile, Michael Croft, the director of the National Youth Theatre, was showing his President, Sir Ralph Richardson, around the nearly finished Shaw Theatre which the ever-enlightened Camden Council had built in London's Euston Road. The intention is to house the NYT and a new Croft-inspired professional troupe called The Dolphin; but, again, apart from an annual £9,000 from Camden and the interest from the keep• Michael-Croft-afloat-fund, cash is the big problem. Croft has been waiting for fifteen years to see the Arts Council support his schemes with something approaching enthusiasm and has recently had the extra disappointment of witnessing huge sums of taxpayers' money being poured, some would say, down the drain of the New Young Old Vic which proclaimed many of Croft's fought-for ideals without once accrediting him.
The policy, or lack of it, devised by the men behind Lord Eccles was further high' lighted two weeks ago when the BBC in the South and West announced that the Arts Council was actually going to give money to a scheme being organised by the North- cott Theatre in Exeter which only recently appointed a new, thrusting, trendy, under- ground director, Jane Howell, sometime of the Royal Court. Despite the BBC, the facts were somewhat different although no less stimulating. Tony Church, the ex-director and now consultant of the Theatre, had become increasingly frustrated by the shortage of trained and educated technicians who could reliably operate his behind-the- scene departments, such as electricians, scenery builders, wig-makers, costume
designers and hairdressers. Unlike West End theatres where such tasks are often just simply contracted out, the sixty to seventy repertory theatres in the provinces have to rely on a body of underpaid and often ill- prepared men whose enthusiasm and long suffering are sometimes the excuse for lack of skill. Now that the Equity minimum for such technicians has been raised to £20 a week, the money, although hardly a gold mine, is marginally more attractive. All that remains is to find the talent, and then train it.
But there exists no technical equivalent of RADA. Church argues that unless you persuade young craftsmen who are still involved in their apprenticeships that the Professional theatre, let alone the under- ground theatre wherever that is, is a worth- while and challenging outlet for their trades, then you haven't a hope in hell of staffing the repertories with the kind of skills neces- sary to keep pace with the increasingly high standard of contemporary theatre. Exeter, which is now mostly known for its bypass, as cathedral and its theatre, is uniquely Placed for the development of a scheme of technical and theatrical training. Five years ago, G. V. Northcott, a local businessman, offered £100,000 for improvements to the local Theatre Royal. For reasons only known to themselves, the theatre's manage- ment decided to sell the building altogether and redevelop the site as an office block. The university, meanwhile, intending to Construct its own theatre, persuaded North- cott to invest his money with them and, together with cash from the Gulbenkian Trust plus their own resources, built the four hundred and thirty-four seat theatre in 1967. Church, when appointed, altered the original concept, which had been to receive touring companies such as the Prospect Players as well as service the university amateur societies, and founded his own company; its primary function was to be the first major repertory theatre of the South- West. He was lucky in his resident play- wright and now associate director, Jack Emery, who quickly produced two plays whose subject-matter was of immediate local appeal. The first, The Bastard King, investi- gated the Monmouth rebellion of 1685 which centred on Lyme Regis, Sedgemoor and Exeter, and the second was a life of John Wesley. Emery's new play, Fair Maid of the West, is an adaptation of an original written in 1617 by Thomas Heywood. A lightweight, melodramatic, seafaring romance, the play is being spiced with West Country village songs, thus giving it a dis- tinctly folk theatre flavour, and the music is being supplied by a local expert on West Country music, Cyril Tawney. With such popular dramas, the Northcott has toured Devon, Somerset and Cornwall with im- mense success. Last year, its audience capacity was 78 per cent, a growth of 23 per cent over the three years of its existence. Its prestige, even with the city council, was further enhanced when it began its Festival of Young People now held annually in June/July. Local kids invade the theatre for three weeks and, with professional assist- ance, create their own theatre workshop while receiving instruction in the various crafts of the stage.
The obvious attractiveness of the Festival to these young people encouraged Church to think how he could capitalise on such enthusiasm. Hence his technical training scheme. He already knew that Exeter had a well equipped College of Further Educa-
tion more than anxious to co-operate in the formal training of those interested in the theatre. Students enrolled in a two-year course in joinery; for example, could easily receive an injection of theatre practice into their curriculum to the mutual benefit of all. Similarly, the local College of Art, which already had courses in wig-making and hairdressing, could teach its design students the uses of modern materials such as plastics in scenery construction. The local authorities want to help and want to be involved. So Church proposed building an extension on the existing theatre to house a new paint-shop, store and construction rooms. The university, which has its own two-year-old drama department, readily gave the site and helped draw up the plans. Everyone saw it as a chance to train these much-needed technicians not just for Exeter but for the whole country. Church then approached the Arts Council.
Now the Arts Council had not given any money to the original capital investment al- though it does• now donate an annual sub- sidy of £40,000. It rejected his scheme saying that it would prefer to consider a national scheme. naturally based in London, and that its training committee had the matter in hand; which means that nothing will get done for two or three years—if ever. Anyway, Church argues, why not try out the scheme at a local level as a pilot to see how and if it can work? Exeter has the facilities and more impor- tantly the will. The buildings would cost a realistic £100,000, but to get the scheme under way would require only £10,000, a very in- expensive investment for potentially so fund- amental an opportunity. But Church is not hopeful. 'After all,' he says, 'the Arts Council thinks that Exeter is somewhere on the moon.'
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