It is nothing short of a triumph for West End theatre that on Sunday 27th December, BBC four screened in its entirety the most recent revival of Gypsy starring Imelda Staunton, billed confusingly as live from the Savoy Theatre at a 9 pm timeslot some weeks after the production had closed. The release of the hit London revival seems to follow in the festive footsteps of the DVD release of Billy Elliot for Christmas 2014 and suggests an oncoming trend of recording stage musicals. Given how hard the Olivier awards struggle to obtain regular broadcast, this is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. |
And how did it fare? Well, aside from #Gypsy trending on twitter, which is only considered impressive when you ignore how often Towie and One Direction related nonsense manages to take over the easily topped social media platform, the screening appeared to be remarkably successful, though this is as perceived from within the bubble of an avid theatregoer whose timeline was filled with West End actors hurdling over each other to declare Staunton's performance tour de force. Having seen Imelda's Mama Rose in its original Chichester staging I was entertained by the broadcast without being awe inspired, but mostly because I still rank her performance in Good People, an entirely underappreciated West End play from last year, to be far superior. Is it then a crying shame that small plays like this are given limited opportunity for widespread awareness after they close while the thousands that already saw Gypsy watch it again and again?
As far as the west end play is concerned, they are usually confined to the cinema screen. A new player this year in cinema broadcast of west end theatre is found in Sir Kenneth Branagh's season of repertory plays at the Garrick Theatre in London. While there seem to exist only plans to broadcast The Winter's Tale and next year's mounting of Romeo and Juliet, this is still relatively unheard of for London plays outside of the National Theatre's broadcast programme and is an exciting prospect, as is the decision to allocate the day seats for all the Branagh productions via the mobile lottery on the Today Tix app. If this is the future of the playhouses then I can only applaud.
At the forefront of cinema broadcast is still National Theatre Live, the essentially goodwill service from the National Theatre that is said to make them little to no profit, in which they broadcast various productions of theirs as well as other west end happenings to cinemas across the country and indeed the entire world. This proves beneficial when excellent West End productions are made accessible for which tickets would usually be nigh unattainable, such as the recent Hamlet at the Barbican, Stephen Daldry's exceptional Skylight last year or the Young Vic's dizzyingly exciting A Streetcar Named Desire. However, noble as these efforts are, the National only seem encouraged to lift a finger for these productions when motivated by the star casting they all share. Essentially, expect NT live to give cinema goers a ticket to high profile west end theatre from the comfort of their local cinema as long as the play's star is set to release a blockbuster film in the coming year.
Meanwhile, where Digital Theatre used to record a small and seemingly random selection of plays for posterity and online purchase, such as Howard Davies' thrilling All My Sons, the Old Vic's mammoth revival of The Crucible or the hilarious Chichester import of Private Lives, they haven't filmed a live stage production in over a year and unless they're behind the recent broadcast of David Suchet's The Importance of Being Earnest (having filmed every other stage vehicle he's taken in the last five years), have made little to no murmurings about further plans to do so.
So while the best musical theatre of London is becoming available as late night weekend television fodder (as long as the actual production is no longer profitable of course), audiences outside of London are obliged to believe that Rufus Norris' latest selection of programming at the National Theatre as well as whatever play a Hollywood actor happens to stumble into are the height of British dramatic theatre. Don't assume this means I'm suggesting Sir Kenneth Branagh would have made a better appointment to the National's coveted artistic director position, I still find his season at the Garrick to be the sort of classic theatre that would mark a step backward for the them, but the ball is certainly in Norris' court and if conquering the digital age of theatre is to become a stepping stone by which artistic directors are measured, then I for one am waiting to be impressed.
As far as the west end play is concerned, they are usually confined to the cinema screen. A new player this year in cinema broadcast of west end theatre is found in Sir Kenneth Branagh's season of repertory plays at the Garrick Theatre in London. While there seem to exist only plans to broadcast The Winter's Tale and next year's mounting of Romeo and Juliet, this is still relatively unheard of for London plays outside of the National Theatre's broadcast programme and is an exciting prospect, as is the decision to allocate the day seats for all the Branagh productions via the mobile lottery on the Today Tix app. If this is the future of the playhouses then I can only applaud.
At the forefront of cinema broadcast is still National Theatre Live, the essentially goodwill service from the National Theatre that is said to make them little to no profit, in which they broadcast various productions of theirs as well as other west end happenings to cinemas across the country and indeed the entire world. This proves beneficial when excellent West End productions are made accessible for which tickets would usually be nigh unattainable, such as the recent Hamlet at the Barbican, Stephen Daldry's exceptional Skylight last year or the Young Vic's dizzyingly exciting A Streetcar Named Desire. However, noble as these efforts are, the National only seem encouraged to lift a finger for these productions when motivated by the star casting they all share. Essentially, expect NT live to give cinema goers a ticket to high profile west end theatre from the comfort of their local cinema as long as the play's star is set to release a blockbuster film in the coming year.
Meanwhile, where Digital Theatre used to record a small and seemingly random selection of plays for posterity and online purchase, such as Howard Davies' thrilling All My Sons, the Old Vic's mammoth revival of The Crucible or the hilarious Chichester import of Private Lives, they haven't filmed a live stage production in over a year and unless they're behind the recent broadcast of David Suchet's The Importance of Being Earnest (having filmed every other stage vehicle he's taken in the last five years), have made little to no murmurings about further plans to do so.
So while the best musical theatre of London is becoming available as late night weekend television fodder (as long as the actual production is no longer profitable of course), audiences outside of London are obliged to believe that Rufus Norris' latest selection of programming at the National Theatre as well as whatever play a Hollywood actor happens to stumble into are the height of British dramatic theatre. Don't assume this means I'm suggesting Sir Kenneth Branagh would have made a better appointment to the National's coveted artistic director position, I still find his season at the Garrick to be the sort of classic theatre that would mark a step backward for the them, but the ball is certainly in Norris' court and if conquering the digital age of theatre is to become a stepping stone by which artistic directors are measured, then I for one am waiting to be impressed.