Ben Lawrence says the arts' "mission to entertain" has evaporated under efforts to diversify audiences. Can the arts balance being challenging with being cheerful?
'Last week, theatre director Rupert Goold called for musical theatre to receive public funding. Goold, whose credits include the musical stage version of Made in Dagenham, said that there was “a bit of snobbery” in the UK around this theatrical subgenre, and that leaving it purely in the hands of the commercial sector means that new, more experimental works would get overlooked; that we would never be able to make a UK equivalent of Hamilton.
While I am not wholly in agreement with Goold (subsidised companies such as the RSC, who staged Matilda, and Sheffield Crucible, who developed Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, have been given the money to develop musicals), he went on to make a very fair point. While snobbery surrounding musical theatre is nothing new, it is part of a very current crisis in the arts. As Goold said: “People want to feel joy and there’s a real gap at the moment.”' ...Keep reading on The Telegraph
'Last week, theatre director Rupert Goold called for musical theatre to receive public funding. Goold, whose credits include the musical stage version of Made in Dagenham, said that there was “a bit of snobbery” in the UK around this theatrical subgenre, and that leaving it purely in the hands of the commercial sector means that new, more experimental works would get overlooked; that we would never be able to make a UK equivalent of Hamilton.
While I am not wholly in agreement with Goold (subsidised companies such as the RSC, who staged Matilda, and Sheffield Crucible, who developed Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, have been given the money to develop musicals), he went on to make a very fair point. While snobbery surrounding musical theatre is nothing new, it is part of a very current crisis in the arts. As Goold said: “People want to feel joy and there’s a real gap at the moment.”' ...Keep reading on The Telegraph