BBC can help spread the magic of theatre

I’m writing on the return from the bombed-out ruins of ‘a north-east town’. Local leaders were gathered round these ruins: not to talk about the Blitz, but about 2017, when Hull will be UK City of Culture. The ruins are the set of Dancing Through the Shadows, a new play from Richard Vergette, at Hull Truck, that has gathered rave reviews from local and national press. It’s a play from Hull, about Hull, that captures the experiences and spirit of the city.

I spend much of my life on the move between Britain’s cities and I see a similar picture everywhere: local theatres telling stories of local lives or reinventing old classics to resonate with their audiences. These theatres, as well as the independent companies that work in them, are places where homespun as well as established actors, directors and writers have space to shine. These are the crucibles where all that world-famous British talent we like to boast about master their craft.

Like many, I think we have lived through a golden age of theatre and, in particular, new plays. In the last couple of months, I’ve been knocked for six by Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen, Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things, Simon McBurney’s The Encounter and Corn Exchange Theatre Company’s adaptation of Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, among others. I can’t seem to keep up: I still haven’t seen Pomona, or Lanark, or Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour.

Yet, we also know the ecology that supports this work is a fragile one. Anyone who works in a theatre knows that the smallest tweak to the funding model or an ill-timed flop can curb ambitions for future years. And it’s an important few weeks for theatres. On Monday, a report commissioned by body UK Theatre on the health and trends of tickets sales showed that while theatres remain largely in good shape, tough decisions have had to be made. This comes as public spending is under increasing pressure.

It never fails to amaze me how much risk is taken in championing new work

All walks of British life – the health sector, business, education – have their heroes. In the arts, I see them in the theatre most of all. It never fails to amaze me how much risk is taken in championing new work and new talent, despite the stakes being so high. It’s the recognition of this that inspired the BBC’s On Stage season – the biggest focus on British theatre in my memory of the BBC. When we began to programme the season last year, our aim was to celebrate the every-day heroism of our theatres, the diversity of the work and talent they support, and the ambition and derring-do that makes British theatre the best in the world.

At the heart of the theatre season is Richard Eyre’s superb new adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser with Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins – a play that captures a golden age of touring repertory theatre, reminding us that we mess with it at our peril. It’s well known that Sir in The Dresser is closely modelled on Donald Wolfit. Without him and his touring company there would arguably have been no Harold Pinter, Peter O’Toole or indeed Ronald Harwood, at least, not in the way we know them.

Around this centrepiece, which we hope will capture people’s attention, we are doing a series of five one-act plays Live from Television Centre for BBC4 and iPlayer. The project has been co-commissioned with Arts Council England and Battersea Arts Centre and features work from Gecko, Bradford-based Common Wealth, Islington Community Theatre, Touretteshero and Richard DeDomenici. This project, which has brought together leaders from theatres big and small, has been an amazingly collaborative and educational experience for us all. And it gave me an opportunity to be part of a commissioning panel that included NT Live’s David Sabel, Battersea Arts Centre’s David Jubb, Eclipse’s Dawn Walton and Arts Council England’s Neil Darlison.

We have a range of documentaries across our network channels. Imagine has films on Michael White and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Derek Jacobi presents a programme on David Garrick. There are In Conversations with Ronald Harwood, David Hare and Antony Sher. Josie Rourke is presenting an episode of Artsnight, Vicky Featherstone is guest curating BBC Arts Online. CBeebies is transmitting Justin Fletcher’s The Tale of Mr Tumble filmed at Manchester International Festival earlier in the summer. On radio, Lenny Henry is presenting a 10-part series on the history of black British theatre and screen, and Harriet Walter is curating a season of plays on BBC Radio 3.

I’m especially excited by 11 documentaries that will be broadcast on BBC1 in English Regions on November 9, with some repeats on BBC4 – each captures the experience of a local theatre over the last six months and has been the result of a huge push from BBC teams across the country. The theatres featured are Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, Everyman in Liverpool, the Curve in Leicester, Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Frinton Summer Theatre, Soho Theatre, York Theatre Royal, Bristol Old Vic, Exeter Northcott Theatre, Theatre Royal Margate, New Theatre, Cardiff and the Kings in Portsmouth. In addition, BBC Scotland has produced a profile of the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in the year of its 70th birthday.

Across all our programming, we’re exploring the relationship between broadcast and theatre in different ways. The success of NT Live has taken everybody by surprise, and I’m not convinced that trying to replicate it is the right or appropriate thing for the BBC to do. Anyone who has attended a live theatre broadcast in a cinema knows that being part of an audience is a central part of the experience. Television is a more intimate experience and requires a different approach. Even pre-recording allows for different takes that can get you closer to an actor’s performance.

So across BBC On Stage, we’ve revived or are trying out a number of formats. From the traditional stage captures of The Tale of Mr Tumble and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Volpone (commissioned by the Space), to the intimate teleplay of The Dresser, to the innovative Live from Television Centre. These are alongside documentaries, interviews and profiles that will simply raise an awareness of a theatre’s work.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen the impact the BBC has when it combines the beams of its services, each with its own audience reach, on a single subject. By programming in this way, across so many of our services, I hope we can make more people inspired by our theatres and the talent they support – wherever they are. We are working with local theatres who are keen to support our season through their very own ‘Theatre Play Day’ on November 21. It’s to encourage audiences not just to watch and listen to our programming, but get involved in the theatres closest to them too.

It is increasingly important the BBC works this way. For all the challenges it faces as an organisation, it has a degree of stability that many can only dream of. Its services reach more than 96% of the population each week, so it can deliver access to the arts and culture as nobody else can. It has a precious, sophisticated infrastructure of local services that can connect artists and audiences at regional, national and international levels. It’s not hard to see that the BBC occupies a privileged and protected place in British culture, and so has an obligation to work with and support the wider arts and cultural sector. In doing so, I believe it increases creative innovation, diversity and risk in its own output.

The BBC is one element of a wider sector of theatres, broadcast and film companies that enables writers, actors, directors and producers to thrive (and – with the voice of Norman from The Dresser in my head, let’s not forget the backstage and technical crew too). It’s impossible to spend a day in Broadcasting House without encountering an actor or writer you admire in the lifts. But, for this season, we wanted to put the focus on the theatres themselves. They were there before us, they will outlive us all, and they remain the great showgrounds of emerging as well as established British talent.