Bec Martin reveals inaugural New Diorama season

From November 14 to December 14, live performance company YESYESNONO will mount The Glorious French Revolution (or: why sometimes it takes a guillotine to get anything done). Written and directed by Sam Ward, the show incorporates music and dance to tell the tale of an insurrection.

Meanwhile, the NDT’s primary schools touring project will see The Shivers present to more than 4,000 school pupils in June, with two matinee performances held at the theatre on June 22.

Martin, former head of programming at Vault Festival, said: "I think the statement of intent is very much around acknowledging a lot of gaps in the industry. You know, a couple of days ago Vault announced their closure, so where do emerging artists go? There is a real feeling that even sort of mid-career artists who have been plying their trade for 10, 15 years just don’t have anywhere to go.

"I want New Diorama in whatever way that is to be a place where everybody can go to try something and take an artistic risk and be held in a manner that won’t bankrupt them."

Martin continued: "The content of the work is about all questioning systems. Every piece of work in the season really deliberately is about going: ’Is this the best way to do something? Are we just doing it because it’s been done before?’ At this moment in time, we are in an election year, we are coming to the end of the Arts Council England’s 10-year Let’s Create strategy. There is an opportunity here for change and to question what’s come before.

"With the funding landscape currently, what a privileged position I and New Diorama are in that we might be able to lead a charge to question what’s come before."

Martin said challenging the status quo incorporated asking questions of funding for the arts, but also the themes reflected in the season’s work, such as those impacting "the care system", "revolution", and "the immigration system".

But Martin stressed that a battle cry was not purely a "yell of anger", rather a call for collaboration and togetherness. "It’s like a ’please come with us, you’re all welcome to come with us’," she said.

Sharing her intentions for the theatre on which she hopes to make her own mark, Martin said: "Something that I’ve been wrestling with over the last few months since I got the job is the long, long shadow cast by David Byrne and what he’s done with that theatre and what he and the team at NDT have done over the last decade, creating this space where a small, studio theatre can have this national and international impact and really properly support and change artists. My main priority is to continue that legacy."

Martin concluded: "Things look bleak at the moment in the theatre industry and I think we are all feeling it. We can do it. I don’t know what it is but we can do it. Let’s go."