'We need more time and more cash' – Yorkshire’s theatres on staying strong in 2023

‘We have an audience that is very loyal’ – SJT chief executive Caroline Routh 

While the SJT is built around these two specific programming strategies, York Theatre Royal has employed a different approach as it seeks to win audiences back after two Covid-riddled years. “As we were reopening the theatre, we said: ‘When we produce, we want to make only new work,’ which is a huge step for us, not to just fall back on Miller and Chekhov, but to make work that has direct relevance to the people of York,” says outgoing chief executive Tom Bird. 

In 2021, the city-centre theatre reopened with Love Bites, which featured 22 short performances by York artists – ranging from theatre and poetry to comedy and music – and The Coppergate Woman, a new play that weaved York’s Viking legends with stories from the city today. Bird adds: “The future for York Theatre Royal is to be a ‘city theatre of the future’. That [mantra] is nicked from NTGent in Belgium – engaging with the issues and the people of the city specifically, but not in an old-fashioned, folkloristic or chauvinistic way.”

Separately to the pandemic, the theatre has sought to appeal to a different audience in recent years. The clearest example of this came in early 2020 when it made changes to its annual pantomime. In a well-publicised change of direction, long-serving actors – including pantomime dame Berwick Kaler, who co-wrote the venue’s pantomime and appeared in it for 40 years – were replaced by a new writing and directing team, a move intended to overhaul the look and feel of its annual festive show.

Bird says this has contributed to a significant shift in the theatre’s audience. “We made this big change on panto and the profile of our panto audience is totally different,” he says, adding that the organisation has “tried to pivot towards a younger audience than you would traditionally find in regional theatre”.

He adds: “When we have tried to cater more for our core audience, as with touring or our recent show about Guy Fawkes, it has also started to rebuild. We’re getting as good numbers but the audience is different.”

‘We’re getting as good numbers but the audience is different’ – York Theatre Royal chief Tom Bird

A changing and unpredictable audience picture is one of the key stories of British theatre’s pandemic recovery. For Leeds Playhouse, this is certainly true, as executive director Shawab Iqbal explains.

“Our Christmas show, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is on track to break sales records, but it’s a mixed picture. Some shows are doing really well, but equally there are other shows that haven’t done as well as they would have done before the pandemic.” In cases where shows haven’t done as well, Iqbal suggests it could be down to the fact that “in a cost-of-living crisis, people are more likely to invest money in feel-good shows, in the titles that are quite safe and they’re familiar with”.

If this sounds like a recipe for safe, saccharine storytelling, a glance at the variety of recent programming at Leeds Playhouse – which has a 750-seat main house and a smaller second space – shows that is not the case: August Wilson’s Jitney, a new spin on Dracula, Maggie May – a new Leeds-set play co-created with people living with dementia – and a queer, global-majority-cast rendition of The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as the aforementioned new staging of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a standout, award-winning production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It should be acknowledged that many of these, the SJT’s and York Theatre Royal’s shows, are co-productions – another tenet of today’s theatre landscape that has become increasingly necessary since the pandemic.

Leeds’ artistic director James Brining is clear about why the variety of its offering is crucial. “When I first came here, I was worried about trying to be all things to all people, but over the years I’ve realised that Leeds contains multitudes and our job is to engage with as many people as possible in the city, and hopefully there’s something here that makes them go: ‘I quite fancy seeing that.’ Our through line is telling stories with heart that feel like they’re saying something about our world now.” 

‘The elephant in the room is standstill funding’ – Leeds Playhouse executive director Shawab Iqbal

As the impacts of the pandemic shrink away, the rising cost of living has loomed into view, presenting an equally, if not more, serious threat. All three theatres cite the crisis among the most pressing challenges they are facing. As the SJT’s artistic director Paul Robinson points out: “In budget terms, we looked at a three-year period to get back to where we were before [the pandemic], and then halfway through the plan we’ve been hit by the next challenge.”

Not only are theatres battling to keep audiences engaged when their disposable income is tight, but financial hardship is contributing to theatre’s talent drain, with exoduses in areas such as technical, marketing and fundraising staff, as workers leave to join sectors such as television and education. This has put additional pressure on organisations – especially those outside of London.

“The elephant in the room in the industry is standstill funding and the cost-of-living crisis,” says Iqbal. “If we’re going to achieve equity, we need more time and we need more cash.” Robinson agrees: “There are only so many ways that a theatre can pass that cost on in the way that so many costs have been passed on to us,” he says.

One thing all three theatres agree on is the importance of the enhanced Theatre Tax Relief. The higher rate, which has enabled theatres and producers to claim back more of their qualifying production costs, ends this year. Bird is clear: “TTR helps theatres’ bottom line and helps them survive – in fact, we’ve all now become completely reliant on it and there’s no point pretending we’re not.” Iqbal calls it “critical and crucial” to theatre’s future, and, as Bird notes, TTR makes financial sense for the government.

“If the rate stays high we will make work in York and local artists will get work, and if the rate goes back down we’ll have much less ability to produce ourselves. Not only is it a source of financial support, it’s a direct investment in producing. For producing theatres, TTR is everything,” he says.

The challenges are clear, but so is the sense that these theatres have worked hard to cultivate an audience, which, despite significant economic concerns, is loyal to them and clearly wants to engage with their work. While 2023 will no doubt bring a great number of challenges for theatres nationwide, these three Yorkshire venues have many reasons to be optimistic.

For more: leedsplayhouse.org.uk; sjt.uk.com; yorktheatreroyal.co.uk