Tomorrow, I'm meeting the actor Malcolm Sinclair to interview him for a g2 arts profile. Not only because he's taken over the role of Benjamin Britten in Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art at the National Theatre, but also because in July he was voted in as the new president of Equity, the actors' union. Sinclair's appointment may just be ushering in a new era for the beleaguered union: 13 new members have also been voted onto the Equity Council, marking the biggest turnover on the council in recent years. This new council is, apparently, the youngest in recent memory, and contains a majority of women for the first time.
With swingeing cuts looming and debate raging in theatreland about the role and future of Equity, there's a lot I want to ask Sinclair about. But I want to hear from you. There have been some really lively discussions about Equity on the theatre blog recently, several of them prompted by Michael Simkins's interesting postings: from whether Equity's campaign to tackle a plague of rats in West End theatres is just a distraction from the union's own toothlessness, to whether the union's posited introduction of a minimum wage for those working in fringe theatre would be a help or a hindrance.
So what are the burning questions you'd like me to put to Sinclair? Which are the key issues that you think he, and Equity's brand-new council, should be squaring up to?
