Throughout December at Battersea Arts Centre, the flapperesque double act the Bee's Knees danced the charleston every night. Not for their own show, but to open proceedings for 1927's Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The Bee's Knees did their piece, launched the theatre into life and then shimmied off stage.
Live music and comedy nearly always include support acts as precursors to the main attraction, so why is it not more common in theatre? At their best, support acts can transform a routine gig by enabling you to discover a great new talent early in their career; at worst, they merely prove an irritating obstruction to proceedings. What cannot be denied are the benefits to the acts themselves: we may only lend them half an ear, but if they're any good, we certainly remember their name.
It could be argued that theatre is a different kind of beast, as it is less fragmented and episodic than a string of songs or jokes. It functions self-sufficiently, in and of itself, containing its own buildup of dramatic tension. Perhaps theatre is best savoured alone, given unfiltered attention and mulled over in isolation. In my experience, however, plays and performance can thrive in the crammed context of festivals; a mad dash between Edinburgh venues is testament to the fact that radically different pieces can sit comfortably – and enjoyably – side by side.
Traditionally, I suppose, plays stand alone because of their length. Far be it from me to suggest that the RSC's Hamlet could profit from immediately following the National's Oedipus or vice versa. However, the continued rise of devised and studio-based work has ushered in reduced running times, with shows regularly lasting between an hour and 90 minutes. Such work never quite fills an evening, so why not add a supporting slot to the bill?
The biggest hurdle for young practitioners is finding a platform. New companies are kept rotating in a vicious circle that gives them neither the money they need to develop work nor the opportunity to show it and make it a success. Being scheduled as a support act would ease this pressure and encourage theatre-makers to create more compact, considered work.
Why not open a space for a brief piece of related new writing, or devised work by a young company complementing the main performance? Flexibility is the forte of the youthfully enthusiastic, so such work could easily adapt to its borrowed space and context.
Perhaps responsibility rests beyond venues and programmers with established theatre practitioners. Were companies to identify a younger counterpart and lug them along on tour, they'd have a host of extra hands and give audiences more for their money. In the process, young practitioners gain not just precious and – crucially – appropriate exposure, but also firsthand experience of touring and arts management, the chance to initiate longer-term relationships with venues nationwide, and the possibility of artistic mentoring from the more experienced.
