I recently had a conversation with the director of a large regional theatre. It went something like this:
"So what have you seen at the moment that you'd particularly recommend?"
"I enjoyed the thing at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Good Christmas show in Bolton."
"Yes, I know about those. I mean, what should I see in London?"
"I don't know. I never go to London."
"Me neither."
This shouldn't be all that important, of course. Her job is to make theatre in the north of England; my job is to go and watch it. For years, regional theatres have made it their mission to ensure that provincial audiences need not travel far to be ensured of a quality experience. Indeed, it's high time those theatre folk in the capital came to us.
Which they are about to do, after a fashion. Last week, the National Theatre's director Nick Hytner launched a pilot scheme, known as NT Live, which will broadcast selected productions to a network of 50 regional cinemas. It sounds like a pretty good deal: no need to shell out on travel and accommodation to see Helen Mirren in Phèdre, when you can catch her in HD at your local independent picturehouse for a tenner.
The Phèdre broadcast is scheduled to take place on 25 June, with three as yet unspecified productions to follow. For all the innovation of the project – it uses live feeds via satellite, technology pioneered by the Metropolitan Opera – the fact that it is expected to cost audiences just £10 per ticket may be most significant. The main reason I don't see more opera or theatre in London, let alone New York, is the cost. That's exactly the reason I don't go to more live Met broadcasts too; the prospect of seeing Renée Fleming up close and personal is tempting, but it's tempered by ticket prices of £20 and above. Of course this is an expensive business (it's estimated that each of the National Theatre's broadcasts will cost £50,000), but I find myself reluctant to sit watching opera in a cinema when the same money will get a perfectly reasonable seat at Opera North.
But £10 sounds a lot more like it. That amount is much closer to what you would normally pay at the cinema or a regional theatre, come to that. The NT plans to subsidise the operation by selling the rights abroad, and if the NT has its sums right, it ought to be a roaring success.
You could ask – as Dominic Cavendish does – why the money couldn't be spent bolstering the National Theatre's touring programme. But I think that misses the point. Productions intended to tour have to be designed as such. Metropolitan audiences would complain of being short-changed if everything at the Olivier was scaled to fit in the back of a truck. And – with the best will in the world – would major stars go with them? Helen Mirren doing Phèdre is a major event. The production is scheduled to travel to Epidaurus and Washington, but it would be simply naive to expect that Mirren would sign up for an extended schlep around the country.
People are bound to ask if local theatres may be threatened by an incursion on their patch. I doubt it. What's more likely is that non-theatregoers might find out what they're missing and be tempted to book for the real thing. And as long as the NT Live project is treated as an enhancement of its touring work, not a replacement for it, everyone ought to be happy. What will be interesting to discover is what extent the National Theatre might mimic the Met's presentational style, which itself seems to be modelled on Sky Sports. The Met broadcasts not only take you so close to the action that you can see the singers' tonsils, but also supplement the action with backstage footage and interviews with the cast as they come off the stage. Cinema audiences for the Met's Tristan und Isolde were treated to the bizarre spectacle of a heavily perspiring Deborah Voight being collared in the wings and asked if she could talk us through the Liebestod.
Nick Hytner says Helen Mirren is "very excited" about the Phèdre broadcast and has agreed to head up the promotional campaign. But are we going to see her outside the dressing room with her makeup running, telling us: "When the gaffer picked me for the Racine I were over the moon"?
