Defund theatres – and give the money to gardeners and bingo halls

For nearly six months our subsidised playhouses, notably the National Theatre, have been dark. What have we missed? Not much. Some would say nothing at all. And this has come as a surprise to those of us who were led to believe that the subsidised theatre is critical to ‘the national conversation’. It turns out that the nation can happily debate political and social issues without the help of playwrights or actors. Perhaps it’s time to re-examine our state-funded theatres and the reasons we support them.

The National Theatre was set up in 1963, soon after the establishment of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961, and both received funding from the Arts Council, which was founded in 1946. The leaders of these august bodies had a particular reverence for drama, opera, ballet and orchestral music. And they assumed, perhaps a little arrogantly, that their preferences were a force for good, and that culture could improve humanity. That theory is still active today. The website of the beleaguered Old Vic proclaims that ‘every time a theatre closes… we lose a chance to make the world better’. But is there any evidence for this commonly held belief? What role did the theatre play in the development of the bicycle or the polio vaccine or the internet? Which theatre-makers contributed to the D-Day landings, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Good Friday Agreement?

You could say these examples are irrelevant because actors and dramatists don’t fight wars or invent things. The theatre is a public platform where ideas can be exchanged. And at its best it offers a particularly valuable type of discursive drama — the ‘state-of-the-nation’ play. The National specialises in this genre. Stuff Happens by David Hare (2004) examined the Iraq war. England People Very Nice (2009) by Richard Bean chronicled race relations in Britain.