Culture cuts

Although the long leisure break that is Christmas and the New Year gives us plenty of time to reflect on the year that has just passed, it seems tedious to give a top ten of shows seen, although other bloggers have done a good job of summarising the past 12 months. But I cannot let the occasion go by without mentioning, like another blogger, a couple of my abiding memories of 2010. One must be the emergence of a hugely talented clown, who goes by the name of Jeremy Hunt, although Radio 4’s Today programme inadvertently revealed his real appellation. Although this fool has already made our sides split with his moronic pontifications about the looming cuts, he has just been given responsibility for assessing Rupert Murdoch’s fitness to possess a controlling interest in BSB — should be an amusing episode in 2011’s culture. Otherwise, it was great to see Nicholas Hytner topping the lists of the most important theatre people in the land. His recipe for responding to cuts — by turning his flagship venue into a a palace of popular varieties — will be widely copied. It’s a sound strategy — pity it involves ditching real directorial talent, such as Katie Mitchell. Oh well, perhaps the cuts have already started?

Belarus Free Theatre

European Union observers on Monday declared the presidential election in Belarus which returned “President” Lukashenko a “failure”. Well, that’s an understatement: he was re-elected in what was obviously a rigged vote, and he immediately arrested the opposition candidates. Lukashenko, a dangerous gangster and revolting criminal, has also arrested members of the Belarus Free Theatre. As Index on Censorship states: “Allegations have been made of torture. People are still missing and unaccounted for. Trials have already begun for hundreds of Belarusians arrested during the protests. Several opposition leaders have been attacked. The Editor of independent news website Charter 97, Natalia Radzina, was badly beaten and is now in jail. And members of the Belarus Free Theatre have been arrested.” There is a protest outside the country’s Embassy, 6 Kensington Court, London W8 5DL, tonight at 6pm.

Belarus Free Theatre

Recommendation of the week must go to playwright Laura Wade’s Guardian blog about the Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), which briefly visited the Young Vic about a week ago. As she points out, they are an underground group not because this is a cool label to adopt, but because Belarus is a dictatorship, and excessively fond of censoring, imprisoning, beating up, and torturing its citizens. Wade’s inspiring account of a typical BFT performance simply buzzes with relevance, and must surely give us pause. At this season of the year, when all our theatres are falling over themselves to serve up some cheerful Christmas fare, designed to take our minds off our petty problems, perhaps what we really need is theatre that really challenges us — more new plays that ask the really difficult questions. And although it’s a good idea to sign the solidarity petition, maybe the best thing we can do to celebrate the courage of the BFT is to create work that similarly, in Wade’s words, makes us “feel a little braver and less alone”.

Season’s Greetings

This week, I ventured out to National Theatre to see a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1980 comedy, Season’s Greetings. The best that I can say about this show is that it is almost three hours of generally harmless fun. But sitting there, amid the gales of laughter, I did wonder why the huge resources of this flagship theatre have been devoted to this thin and silly play (which is in what I can only assume to be a moment of senility, or maybe subtle irony (and too clever for me!), compared to Chekhov in the programme). Okay, with funding cuts looming in the arts, it makes sense for Nicholas Hytner, the artistic director of the National, to adopt a populist stance. To be able to say that his theatre attracts and entertains large audiences. But shouldn’t this theatre be something more than a very successful palace of varieties? Wouldn’t it be good to see it staging the work of our most innovative and daring directors? Or broadening, rather than narrowing, our repertoire? What about staging some unknown European plays? Just an idea...

Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, is shaping up well as one of the most humorous of the shower of inept politicians currently squatting in Westminster. His latest joke is that he plans to spend £830 million give the UK “the best broadband network in Europe by 2015”. Oh, that’s a good one. Currently, this country is 13th in the league of European nations, and — as anyone who has BT as their provider can readily attest — every “upgrade” simply means more problems. Especially humorous is the fact that this will be paid for by using a part of the BBC’s licence money: er, I thought that the Tories believed in free enterprise and not in government giving handouts to business? But perhaps that’s the biggest joke of all.