Have you ever wanted to see a play or musical but found that the only way to see it is by spending £60 on a ticket and travelling across the country? Or scoured every corner of the internet only to find only a poor quality, illegally filmed version on YouTube? Or maybe you have no interest in theatre at all and think it is not for you? Why is it that theatre today is so exclusive and difficult to access?
If you asked most people how often they go to the theatre, they’d likely say a couple of times a year, if at all. There are many reasons for this, whether it be a lack of interest, location or the cost, but an important factor at play is undeniably elitism.
The price of theatre today is simply put, extortionate, with the average price of a West End ticket at £57.31 as of June this year (Alice Saville, The Guardian), with some tickets going up to £400. This may be normal disposable income for some regular theatre-goers, but for most of the UK, this is completely inaccessible. While some tickets may be £30-40 in professional UK theatres, these seats are usually very restricted in their view of the performance, so they are not worth the (somewhat) reduced price. On top of this, the geographical locations of theatres mean many people need to travel great distances to get there, adding even more to the cost (especially considering the price of train tickets), and further limiting accessibility. Although this may not necessarily be at the fault of theatres, as pointed out by Patrick Gracey, it can cost up to £350,000 a week to operate a West End musical (Carl Woodward), and what with drastic cuts to government funding for the arts (with UK arts councils cutting funding by 16% since 2017 according to Equity) theatre is struggling. Why should young people spend so much money they cannot afford to lose on a show they might not enjoy?
However, it is not only the drastic prices of theatre that make it elitist, but also the atmosphere and stereotypes surrounding it. As put by Maia at Medium, both the image and etiquette associated with the theatre can come across as very snobbish, with the stereotypical audience being the middle-class elderly white couple. This makes a lot of people feel that the theatre is simply not a space for them, especially given the inherently hierarchical design of theatres, where the people who spend the most on tickets get the best seats, and the cheaper seats are up in the ‘Gods’. It is not attractive for young people today, not to mention all the unwritten rules and exclusive vocabulary used at theatres. Hence, even if more young people and people of lower-income backgrounds could afford to go to the theatre, so many would choose not to.
Arguably another factor in this is the content that theatres produce, I mean, how many people claim to be ‘not into musicals’ or ‘not a theatre kid’? Many people are simply not interested in theatre, and that is fair enough, but what if they haven’t been shown the right thing and are disillusioned by stereotypes? Do certain titles appear too elite for working-class people to resonate with? Look at ‘Les Misérables’ or ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ – both hugely acclaimed and brilliantly written shows, but not necessarily inclusive titles, probably associated with the ‘posh’ middle-upper class (despite ‘Les Mis’ being about a revolution against the monarchy). Perhaps many shows are written about young, working-class people, or even for them, yet because of prices and stereotypes, these are ironically in the minority of audiences. As put by Andrew Scott, ‘No matter how zeitgeisty or how modern you think your play is, if you are having to spend £150, no person between the age of 16-25 or beyond is going to be able to afford that. That is frustrating to me’ (Carl Woodward). Even if shows are more inclusive, representative and modern, what good does it do if the show itself is inaccessible?
A further issue is that theatre is not only inaccessible to watch in person but almost completely inaccessible online, too. There is no form of theatre streaming available in the mass media; although there may be a few online platforms that provide recorded theatre for viewing, these mostly only provide educational content, require costly subscriptions or a university login and are completely unknown to the general public. Imagine if more live shows were available on platforms such as Netflix. This would increase the audiences of theatre, make it more widely available to watch and make people more excited about going to the theatre. Look at the success of the streaming of ‘Hamilton’ on Disney+, where more people watched the streamed version within its first two days available than had seen it in five years on Broadway (SambaTV). This was an extraordinary feat for musical theatre, so why haven’t more shows done the same? It doesn’t stop people who can afford the theatre from going, as shown by concerts – being able to listen to your favourite artist for free on Spotify does not stop gigs from selling out in a day on Ticketmaster, if anything it increases demand and excitement about seeing the real thing. Imagine if the only way to hear Taylor Swift’s music or see her performing was by getting tickets for her ‘Era’s Tour‘.
Despite all of this, there are some positive initiatives, such as SOLT and UK Theatre’s ‘Theatre for Every Child’ campaign, aiming for every child to have experienced theatre at least once before they leave secondary school. Or theatres offering discounted prices for young people and allowing audiences in for a dress rehearsal for a cheap price (although there are plenty of issues of class differentiation in this too).
The big question here is not if theatre is elite or inaccessible (because let’s be honest, it is) but what can be done about it. Ticket costs are at an all-time high, worsened by inflation, cost of living and defunding of the arts. The system and stereotypes of theatre need dismantling, because it is not only for the middle-class white couple on the front row, but for everyone of all backgrounds to enjoy equally. Initiatives that make performances cheaper are a step forward, but more needs to be done in mass media and entertainment to bring theatre back into the forefront of the arts, and making performances more accessible on streaming platforms or for free online would make a massive difference in this.
Image: by Pixabay from Pexels