‘Theatres like to lecture, but if it wasn’t for us they wouldn’t survive’
As theatres remain in dire straits, it’s time for the industry to cherish their secret saviours – the private donors.
There is, in theatre, a lot of angst about getting “bums on seats”. As the industry forever fights to not seem out of touch and elitist, it spends hours wondering about them: how many bums? How often? And what type of bums exactly are they?
This has only gained a new urgency during the Covid-19 crisis, where theatre’s performers and institutions have been deprived of most of their means of making an income: what do you do when there are no bums at all?
Perhaps instead of staring at the cushions where said posteriors should be, we should be looking at the backs where some discreet name will often be embossed. Sometimes it will be an individual’s; sometimes it will be a couple’s. Sometimes it will be a family’s, and sometimes (please God!) it will be a Rothschild’s.
Whatever the format, these are the people who may be about to drag British theatre out of its worst crisis in decades – the industry has, after all, literally been crying “red alert” this week, along with other live performance venues, about its parlous and precarious condition. Never mind the punters, and forget about the state. I’m talking about the donors.
The donors – sometimes called patrons, or more coyly, friends – are the private individuals and corporations who provide most theatres with at least a third of their funding, often much more; in a theatre like central London’s Donmar, over 50 per cent. And, as funding for the arts has diminished over the last decade, the need for them has only become greater. Ticket sales and the markup on a glass of pinot grigio just can’t fill the coffers alone.
And so the donors are courted, cajoled, positively seduced into parting with their cash, more often than not accrued by a lifetime’s work in the private sector.
“If they don’t get people like us giving the money, most of them wouldn’t survive,” points out Alan Haigh, who, along with his wife Ros, supports a bouquet of institutions, including the National, the Stephen Joseph at Scarborough and the RSC.
Luckily, though, the likes of Haigh, a retired international tax consultant, seem happy to keep giving (at the top end, the Haighs give around £13,000 a year to the National), and it’s all the more ironic, or endearing, considering patrons like them are very often rich, white, middle class and middle-aged – in other words, the very types of bums which theatre is so embarrassed about attracting.
“They do think they need to lecture us a little,” says Haigh. “I think a lot of writers today are told, ‘Oh, our audience will really find this interesting’. And so often, we don’t.”
I spoke to various donors, and although they were all forthright, single-minded individuals, they shared similar traits. First: yes, all quite rich. Second: they do actually seem to care about theatre and aren’t supporting it just to get kudos at galas. Third: they are deeply alarmed about the situation today, and eager to help, though each balks at being the sole solution.
Fourth: they all tend to believe in its educational power as much as its entertainment value, although they may quibble about the ratio. Fifth, they say they are even fine with modern theatre’s great preoccupation with accessibility and identity politics – “it’s just that I don’t want it rammed down my throat,” says Madeleine Hodgkin, a former investment manager who now sits on the Development Board at the National, and donates to various other theatres. This sum can be upwards of £3,000 per year to somewhere like the
Donmar, and more to the National, but she won’t reveal precise figures. “Even my husband doesn’t know that,” she chuckles.
A theatre aficionado since she was a child, Hodgkin finally started donating seriously when invited to a “fairly intimate” dinner of 12 people, where the pièce de résistance was the arrival of the actor Simon Russell Beale for a chat. (This is pretty standard: when it comes to getting donations, dangling the talent is often the best carrot.) She now happily encourages others to donate too, but does still believe that the state should keep funding the National – “it gives the UK a fantastic standing in the world”. It’s just that “the NT already realises that it gets far more money from individuals, than it does from the Arts Council,” she says. Yes – how much?
“I can never remember… they keep those figures very close to their chest. But I think it’s 30 [state funding], 30 [tickets and assorted revenues], 40 – with the 40 being private individuals.”
There is also the matter of taste. The donors I speak to seem to exhibit a preference for the well-constructed, well-written play – politely applauding, but not exactly loving, the avant-garde. But do their preferences actually count for anything?
None at all, they insist and yet, chuckles donor Claire Tremeer, a retired chartered accountant, “the benefit of being a patron is that you can tell the artistic director, or whoever – ‘We don’t like what you’re doing!’”
Tremeer, along with her partner Bob Reichert, gives to various big stages too. Is this something she has often done, then? “When there’s been a sequence of bad plays, and I’ve heard from other people that they’re not liking the season either, then I do say something, yes. Because how can a theatre adapt if they don’t know?”
Both Haigh and Hodgkin say something similar – and yes, they will also withdraw their funding (with regrets), although it takes a lot, they swear. Haigh decided to give less money to Rupert Goold’s Almeida, for instance, after enduring two solid seasons of stuff they didn’t really like: “It was just getting embarrassing,” he sighs.
Hodgkin, meanwhile, has had an on-off relationship with the Royal Court: she thought Dominic Cooke’s tenure there between 2006 and 2013, squarely aimed at the middle classes, was “marvellous” (featuring, as it did, the world premiere of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem and Lucy Prebble’s Enron), but balked at Vicky Featherstone’s right-on sounds when she took over. However, recent stuff has got her giving cash again: “Vicky’s back on form,” she says stoutly. Now she is going to “cut back” with the Donmar, discouraged by its new-ish artistic director Michael Longhurst’s choices, which are, she thinks, “a bit obsessed” with identity politics.
“And Rufus [Norris, head honcho at the NT] – is a bit as well,” (although she signals the NT’S recent Small Island as an example of the excellent things it can do). “But it’s easier with him. You can say, ‘Look, enough is enough!’”
Can you? “Well – I don’t think he takes any notice of it, but it makes you feel more like you’re having your say.” Norris is, she adds, “much, much more approachable” than the previous artistic director, Nicholas Hytner. “Don’t get me wrong,” says Hodgkin. “Nick was hugely, hugely talented, but you didn’t have the access to him. He was more like a god at the National.” This all surprises me: Hytner seems so suave and urbane and diplomatic. “He was suave and urbane – but diplomatic, no!” says Hodgkin. “I mean, just read his book! [Balancing Acts] He doesn’t talk about us donors in a very complimentary light!” There is, in fact, nothing too rude about donors in the book, but Hytner makes no secret of the fact that he finds wining and dining them a chore.
Poor old donors: if they are often told they are loved, they don’t necessarily feel it. But then they seem, as a group, remarkably sanguine.
I also ask Haigh, an eminent supporter of the RSC, how he feels about the company’s recent pledge to instruct its audiences on so-called “microaggressions” they may be enacting towards performers of colour (such as making an actor feel like they are being judged because of their ethnicity).
“Oh yes,” says Haigh knowingly. “I’m a governor at the Royal Central School as well, and we’re very into [dealing with] microaggressions.” He then points out that he has never been discriminated against, so it is hard for him to discuss, and says, very fairly, that “I think anything that makes the actors feel more comfortable is not a bad idea.” Still, he admits he doesn’t like being “harangued”.
Last year, at Edinburgh, he sat through a show where a non-binary performer recounted having a hamburger thrown at them (plus various insults) on London Bridge. In the piece, said performer created a new hamburger each night, and invited audience members to pelt them with it, a mixture of exorcism and excoriation.
To Haigh, it was essentially misguided. “None of us would even consider it!” he says, appalled.
The donors do often seem happy to hand over large chunks of cash and not query where it goes. Often, but not always. Kate Vokes, for instance, is chairman of the Oglesby Charitable Trust, which funds a whole raft of arts projects around the north-west of England, not least Manchester’s Royal Exchange, the Hallé Orchestra and the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.
Vokes and her family strongly believe in the social impact that culture can have in a community, and make no bones about prioritising it.
A very no-nonsense northern discretion is the order of the day: “I don’t need my name in the programme,” says Vokes, “unless the reason is to encourage other people to donate too.” So to be clear, you don’t just hand over a blank cheque?
She laughs kindly. “No, we don’t! We’re about relationships – we roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. And most of the time, that’s welcomed.”
She does admit, however, that the Covid-19 crisis has made them relax a little about monitoring the money, especially when dealing with long-term collaborators. This is no time for quibbling about admin, after all. The mood of the donors, though, is one of discreet calm.
“I don’t think theatre is going to die,” says Haigh. “I mean, Cromwell tried for 12 years, and didn’t succeed.”
In fact, he points out, after Cromwell the theatre had a boom – but instead of long dirges about the parlous state of the nation, we got lots of boisterous Restoration comedies.
“I do wonder, when this is over, whether we might embark on a wonderful burst of frivolity,” says Haigh, twinkling again. “I have no idea!” Of course not. And naturally, no influence either.
Donors are often white, middle class and middleaged – the type of audience directors don’t want
‘I’ve no need to be in the programme, unless it’s to persuade others to donate’