Sorry this is late. I had two season launches in the backlog, and then I was spending a lot of time preparing two different shows. But it would be embarrassing if we ran out of April, so let’s get a move on.
Stuff that happened in March
The big news, of course, was the closure of the Vault Festival. This is a really big deal, and so got a whole article to itself.
Other than that, we’ve had quite a lot of news around various censorship issues. So yet again, I wearily weigh in to censorship debates. But we’ll get to that later. First of all.
Another new Theatre space in Sunderland
You may remember back in 2021 I covered news of two new theatres coming to the north east: Laurels in Whitley Bay and The Fire Station in Sunderland. Since then, I’ve given a lot of coverage to the former but little to the latter. This is because – although they are getting plenty of business – The Fire Station’s programming has ended up being heavily dominated by music events. That’s not a complaint: bigger venues in particular have to be mindful over what sells, and if it’s music events, that’s what you get. But in terms of a venue that gives local theatre-makers a chance to get started, there’s no comparison to what Laurels is doing over in Whitley Bay.
But now, we another venue on the way, and this one might be better bet. Theatre Space North East is a Sunderland-based company, but until now they’ve been one of many north east companies. However, they’ve just got a grant which enables them to convert a building currently used as a rehearsal/storage space into an actual theatre. A small one compared to the Fire Station, just 56 seats, but if you’re starting off, a small venue beats a big one hands down. I’m not sure exactly what the funding source is, but my reading of the story is that it was Sunderland City Council’s decision to choose this. If so, that is encouraging, because it suggests at least one local council recognises the value of giving grass roots artists somewhere to go.
Meanwhile, Boho Arts in Newcastle has got a big grant from North of Tyne Combined Authority, and so is likely to go ahead and open as planned. I do need to mention there are some grumblings over how fairly North of Tyne money is being distributed, but I don’t know enough about this issue to make a fair comment. Still, I think I prefer this to London, where – as I’ve already mentioned – the Mayor of London appears to have been useless over the loss of the Vault Festival. The big unknown, of course, is what these venues will do like when they open. But we now really have noticeable progress to Tyne and Wear becoming more like Greater Manchester with a range of small venues on offer. And if London really can’t be the home of fringe-scale theatre any more, Tyne and Wear may need to step up.
Fool’s Paradise at Brighton Fringe
Now, here’s an interesting development at Brighton Fringe. As most of us have deduced by now, Brighton Fringe’s controversial Caravanserai experiment has been dropped. The venue that was meant to step into the gap left by The Warren was also supposed to be a revenue-raiser for Brighton Fringe, but rumour has it Caravanserai lost control of expenses, defeating the object. Still, there was the question over whether anyone else would try to step into the Warren-shaped hole. And it looks like somebody has.
According to this post, Head First Acrobats are setting up their own venue, Fool’s Paradise. And at first glance, this appears to do a lot of the things Caravanserai/Warren did: two spaces, a site previously used by The Warren, and outdoor bars and food outlets. The important difference, though, is that they’ve run a venue before, at Adelaide and Perth Fringes, so hopefully they know how to manage costs. (Caravanserai was an existing pop-up structure, but the people who managed it at Bestival weren’t involved in Brighton.) However, in spite of the scale of the venue, they only have 34 registrations. Even taking into account Head First might do longer runs, it’s a long way down from Caravanserai. There again, the bad experience of Caravanserai suggests starting small and upscaling later might be wiser.
But … might this be the cause of the aggro that’s caused Spiegeltent and Sweet to break away? This is only speculation, but with nobody telling me what’s going on, this is as good a guess as any. I know Spiegeltent were the most aggrieved by Caravanserai last year (and not without good reason – they stood to lose the most from competition with Caravanserai’s big space), and the perceived favouritism from Brighton Fringe couldn’t have helped. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising if Spiegeltent got wind of what it saw as Warren Mark III, wasn’t willing to give Brighton Fringe the benefit of the doubt another time, and decided to do their own thing. Or that might be completely unrelated. Hopefully, once I’m in Brighton, I can get some better idea of what’s been going on.
Anyway, if we count Spiegeltent’s programme, it’s now looking like Fringe season in Brighton isn’t that far behind the 2019 peak now – it would seem that the absence of a printed programme has make it easier to register late. Once it gets going, I’ll try to get a final set of figures to see where we are.
Underground Venues still doing Buxton
Buxton Fringe has had their roughest start to the year (Covid excepted). The Rotunda is not taking part seemingly due to High peak Council being pointlessly difficult over the Pavilion Gardens. Then came the news at the worst possible moment that Underground Venues might not be taking part either, due to their host building The Old Clubhouse being refurbished at the wrong moment. Underground Venues was quietly confident they would find a replacement venue in time. There again, Vault Festival was quietly confident they had a new venue and we know what happened there. I’m now wary about counting chickens before they’re hatched.
But this time, we needed worry: the metaphorical chickens have hatched. Underground Venues has relocated to an unused retail unit in The Spring shopping centre. They’ve had to do a very rushed programming, but after this – and against the odds – Buxton Fringe has managed to end slightly up on its normal size. There’s still a few details to work out with how this new Undergrounds at Springs space is going to work, but Buxton Fringe has emerged reasonably unscathed from what a couple of months ago might have been a disaster.
One reason to gripe? Underground Venues says High Peak Borough Council was supportive getting a space in the shopping centre set up. But High Peak Borough Council have also been pretty useless with regards to The Rotunda – and with all of Buxton Fringe’s bigger venues either lost or downscales, this will have an impact in the long term. There is a case to claim favouritism here – but it’s more likely to be different bits of the council not talking to each other. I just hope that the bit of the council that is supportive of Buxton Fringe gets listened to more than the bit which is getting in the way.
More fringes at Scarborough and Tunbridge Wells
This isn’t completely new news, but it’s worth nothing that there does seem to be a further expansion of small fringe going on. And – importantly – the two I’m reporting here are proper fringes that embrace the spirit of “all welcome”.
I previously mentioned Scarborough Fringe as part of “Scarborough Fair”, a series of events created by North Yorkshire Council headed by ex-Brighton Fringe CEO Julian Caddy. We’ve already had Scarborough Lights, Scarborough Streets is happening in early May, and then Scarborough Fringe is on the 21st – 30th June. (There is also an overlapping Scarbrough Art festival, which I presume is a bit like the Artist Open Houses that happen during Brighton Fringe.) No information at present on how big this first fringe is, but I’m expecting to find out soon. One important caveat: Scarborough Fair is being funded for three years. After that, Scarborough Fringe probably needs to be well enough established to function on its own.
Meanwhile, it’s worth taking note of Tunbridge Wells Fringe, because this if the fringe that Rotunda are doing as well as Brighton. Tunbridge Wells are in their early years, but I count 140 registrations – not that far behind Buxton. Is there any point in a small fringe with Brighton Fringe only 35 miles away? I’d say yes, for the one reason that Brighton Fringe is a big and very competitive festival, where it’s difficult to get an audience if you’re entry level. As someone who’s done both Brighton and Buxton, I can tell you first hand how much less pressure there is in the smaller one (albeit for fewer opportunities in exposure). Buxton is a good starter option, but there’s plenty of room for two starter fringes, and the south east seems like a good place for another starter fringe.
The news is just a little frustrating to those of us who want a properly open festival in the north-east, but sadly, if anything, there is growing resistance to the sprit of “all welcome” round here. Ah well, maybe give it a little longer and maybe more folk will notice the sky does not fall in when everybody is permitted to take part. Everybody else, keep doing what you’re doing.
This self-censorship row
Yet again I am forced to comment on yet another sodding culture war that’s turned into a censorship issue. This time, it’s this “Voices of Resilience” event at Home Manchester for Palestiniajn voices that got cancelled and, following a (justified) protest, got un-cancelled again. However, this is a different from your usual culture war, because this covers the topic of self-censorship, and this needs discussing. Before we begin, let’s get one thing clear. Self-censorship exists and always will exist. Let me ask you: as an artist, or a reviewer, or anything, do you have any opinions that you are either careful to express, or just choose not to express at all because that’s not a battle worth picking. That’s self-censorship – and, let’s face it, if you have never self-censored, it’s almost certainly because you have no opinions of your own and just go along with whatever’s popular amongst your peers. What’s different here, however, is that there are suspicions that Home has been leaned on by someone in authority, or with the purse-strings, or both. That has to be taken seriously.
Unlike most cases of censorship, the course of events here are murky. Now, as a reminder, my opposition to censorship is not absolute. There may be a case for censorship if the material constitutes incitement to violence or incitement to racial hatred – and, I have to say, the pro-Palestinian movement has been pretty lousy at distancing themselves from nutcases saying those things. But guilt by association is not a good enough reason – if we were to censor everybody for failure to stand up to unsavoury allies, we’d be banning everything. What actually was the problem? Home only gave a vague reason that “the Home team’s safety is Paramount” – but you have got to be more specific than that. Were there people within this event threatening public order? That would be a very serious allegation, and the people implicated must be allowed to know the case against them and defend themselves. Or is it threats against the people doing the production? Cancellation would only reward people making the threats. I suppose there’s the risk of attracting along people they’re not response for but might cause trouble – but you can say the same thing about a Millwall match. And the correct response there is to allow the event but make sure it’s properly policed. That’s not to say there was no valid reason to cancel the event – merely that the onus was on Home to explain what the reason was, and that so far no good reason had been given.
Mind you, the usual suspect up in arms about this really did try my patience. I’ve heard the action decried as “a form of genocide denial”. We can discuss Article III of the CPPCG another time, but “denial”? Come on. There’s a whole world of difference between not mentioning an atrocity happened and claiming that an atrocity never happened. You might as well claim a theatre that hasn’t recently programmed a play about Jews in World War 2 recently is committing Holocaust Denial. And I don’t believe for a second the people complaining the loudest about this would be the slightest bit bothered if censorship worked in their favour. Yes, some of us remember Edinburgh Fringe 2014. However, you can’t censor a performance just because some of their supporters are hypocrites.
The point that I think is being missed, however, is how big a threat self-censorship is. Did someone in power really lean on Home and threaten to withhold funding? This current government has leaned on supposedly neutral organisations for worse. Whether they’d think it was worth the bother is another matter. But the only reason people suspected self-censorship is because an event was programmed and then cancelled. Had the event never been programmed in the first place, no-one would be any the wiser. And so far, nobody seems to be complaining about politicised theatre programming filtering out unwanted voices when that sort of censorship works in their favour. When far too many people in the arts hold an attitude to censorship of “Okay when we do it”, there’s little you can do to defend yourself when you’re on the receiving end.
Will the Hate Speech law clobber Edinburgh Fringe?
There is one other censorship issue that’s raising its ugly head, and it’s the new hate speech law that’s come into force in Scotland. Honestly, if you’re worried about self-censorship, this is what you should be the most worried about. The worst the UK Government can do to Home is withdraw funding. The worst the Scottish Government can do under their horribly ambiguous law is prosecute you. The offence is supposed to be ““threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred”. Okay then, for anyone performing in the aforementioned Palestinian voices event. You might think it’s legitimate, but are you certain there’s nothing in the show that somebody else could interpret as threatening or abuse? Can you prove it wasn’t intended to stir up hatred? The safeguards are also pretty meaningless. A “reasonableness defence”? What the hell does that mean? That’s even more arbitrary than the definitions of threatening and abusive behaviour.
That does not mean Police Scotland are going to run round arresting people willy-nilly. Of course they’re not going to jail anybody who makes a comment that someone else interpreted as threatening. Not unless they intend to incarcerate the entire population of Scotland. No, this is only going to be enforced where it is considered necessary – which can mean anything Police Scotland wants it to mean. My observations of vaguely-worded legislation so far has been that the Police punish people over the most trivial grievances when they feel like it, whilst being free to turn a blind eye to blatant acts of incitement and hatred when they’re not bothered. This is not unique to the hate speech bill or Scotland, but this act makes the scope for abuse of powers much much worse.
Anyway, one quite important event that could potentially get caught up in this is the Edinburgh Fringe. Especially comedy. Sooner or later, somebody in your audience is going to interpret something you said as abusive, and jump to the worst possible conclusions. “Performance of a play” was downplayed by the Bill’s supporters as taking quotes out of context, but it’s not – that wording was literally in the explanatory notes to the bill of what can now be arrestable. Is Police Scotland now going to start arresting Edinburgh Fringe artists mid-performance? Probably not. Even the most petty-minded tinpot tyrants have better things to do that pick fights there. But experience shows that “Oh, the new law would never be used for that” is a flimsy assurance. What if, one day, someone senior in Police Scotland really does have it in for artists expressing certain views? How can you safeguard yourself against a vague law short of watering down what you have to say, or steering clear of it altogether? You don’t like self-censorship – this would be self-censorship like you never imagined.
The easy straw-man rebuttal to make is “What, you’re against a hate speech bill? That means you support hate speech!” But for decades there have been plenty of laws against things such as incitement to violence and harassment. The first question we should always ask before passing new laws that stand to be abused into more curbs on freedoms is: what’s wrong with the laws we have already? Might the problem simply be that the Police aren’t enforcing the existing laws? And if so, shouldn’t we be fixing that problem first instead of handing the Police and Courts increasingly arbitrary powers? Again, I fear the reason this has got so little pushback from artists is that they think it will never be used against them – only people they think deserve it. If that’s the case, it’s woefully naive. Assume you’ll never be on the receiving end, and you may regret it sooner than you think.
Things I wrote in March
Right, that was depressing. Let’s round it off with a list of what I wrote that months, including one depressing one there:
Odds and sods: February 2024: A nostalgic look back at the days when I wrote articles on time.
The return of Ella Grey: Five years after the last adaptation, I give my verdict on Pilot Theatre’s new adaptation of A Song for Ella Grey.
The end of Vault Festival: what went wrong?: The really depressing read. Much of it repeating what other people have said, but some serious questions from me about why the Mayor of London did nothing to help.
Live Theatre’s 2024 season launch: I was invited to Live’s launch for the following year. Also including my thoughts on the new North East Playwriting Award.
Laurel’s 2024 Season Launch: And then another season launch for the following year. Also including my thoughts on their Richard Jenkinson Commission – but this has had a very different effect on the upcoming season.
Finished. At last. Publish.
Chris Neville-Smith's blog on theatre 