“Becoming Nancy” is a modern stage production, written primarily by Elliot Davies, with songs by Terry Ronald. It has recently concluded its run at Birmingham’s Rep Theatre, an event I was lucky enough to attend.
Whilst being a wonderfully fun, lighthearted and delightful time, the show is representative of an inspiring glimmer of hope for the creative industry.
Whilst being based on a novel by Terry Ronald, the show exudes glorious amounts of style, emotion and, most importantly, creativity- an element I feel is disturbingly lacking in the creative industry at this time.
In a world where the creative industry feels more and more like anything but; composed of a fatiguing amount unoriginality and cash-grab-ploys, it feels more important than ever to hold original works in high regard.
This is not to say the industry is completely creatively bankrupt, just that the abundance of unoriginality is noticeably concerning.
It feels to me as though much of the output from the industry as of late has become a homogenized pulp of retreading previous works- be it the slew of film remakes, general uniformity of the pop music industry and brutal longevity of West End and Broadway shows- feeling as though they never change.
However, there is also the discussion of theatre being a dying art, which seems to not be true.
A Guardian survey revealed that the group most likely to want to support theatre was 16–19-year-olds, the least likely being 45–55-year-olds.
However, this statistic greatly contrasts The NPR’s findings that the average West End ticket holder is 40–41-year-olds.
However, the reason for this is the rising prices of tickets, with the 16–19-year-olds simply not having the money to acquire a ticket at the brutal prices they go for, whereas a 40-year-old with a steady income and workflow could.
Theatre is being taken away from younger audiences in many ways and so of course their interest in it as a medium is dwindling- with the instantly accessible, affordable and reliable streaming service being the go-to.
The way I see it, dwindling accessibility eventually leads to dwindling interest.
Modern theatre is a struggling industry because of the prior-mentioned issues.
It all has a knock-on effect, in terms of the dwindling interest in theatre from younger audiences means there is less interest to support the medium.
I feel that increased ticket prices have created a consensus that theatre is an elitist activity, which creators such as Brecht, Sarte and even Shakespeare would scoff at.
As well as this, because of the high regard and pedestal that the long running West End shows are put upon, there is a stigma that modern theatre will be of lower quality and not worth the time, leading to lower ticket sales and poorer performance.
It is important to remember that there is no problem with West End or Broadway shows or deriving enjoyment from them, the likes of Cabaret, Moulin Rouge and Hamilton are all fabulous in their own regard.
However, a level of awareness must be created to protect ourselves from destroying the contemporary theatre industry for future generations and returning contemporary theatre to the high regard it once held. All the classics, at one point, were new plays at some point in time.
