Imagine you’ve nursed your cherished community theatre through the dark days of the Covid pandemic, and are all set to claw some desperately needed revenue in from your ever-popular panto run. Then disaster strikes – ‘the entire cast, under-studies, the drummer, the stage manager – they all went down with Covid.
“We just couldn’t get the show out in Christmas week and New Year week – and we lost a quarter of a million pounds in revenue.
“‘Honestly, we just thought… give us a break,” says Greenwich Theatre’s James Haddrell.
That Covid-induced loss equated to almost a quarter of the theatre’s annual income, and put the acclaimed theatrical venue back into financial straits from which it had spent years trying to clamber out, according to its longstanding Artistic Director.
“The pantomime season for us brings in over forty per cent of our annual income, so it really was so hard to come out of Covid and then face that setback. But we persisted, and we are now finding our way back.”
James joined the theatre back in 2001, quite early in the tenure of the then Artistic Director Hilary Strong. The theatre had lost its Arts Council funding in the late ‘90s, swiftly followed by the loss of council funding too, and had been shuttered.
“Hilary had been Director of the Edinburgh Fringe and reopened the theatre about eighteen months after its closure”, James recalls.
“We just hadn’t been selling enough tickets. So funding was being given, but there weren’t enough local people coming through the doors to justify that funding. I joined first as a press officer, then moved up to marketing manager before taking over as Director in 2007. In those six years before I took the reins we had tried to produce more of our own shows and ultimately got into huge financial debt again.”
Those years had included a play based on Dava Sobel’s book Longitude, and a revival of the Charles Strauss musical Golden Boy that Sammy Davis Jr had performed in at the London Palladium.
Relatedarticles
“We were trying to find our way back to an identity,” says James.
“Producing theatre is expensive, and you have to assume that for the first few years you’re going to lose money, as people get used to your vision and the types of shows you produce. You should build it into your business model but when I took over, we had a deficit of about a quarter of a million pounds.” Once again, the theatre was fighting for its life.
Fast forward to 2012 and James felt things were back on an even keel, but then watched in dismay as funding drained away towards the Olympics push.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a naysayer, I thought the Olympics were fantastic, but it was hoped that organisations like ours would feel a knock-on benefit from the games, and that’s just not how it worked out – so we lost a lot of funding.”
When the pandemic struck back in 2020, James was faced with a stark choice – either to shutter up and wait it out, or radically to change how they offered theatre, which is what they opted to do.
They moved a lot of activity online, including the Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival, with funding from the Arts Council, and produced a reimagined Stephen Berkoff play with a cast of 39 young or emerging actors, each recording their piece at home – with the surprise fortieth performer being Dame Helen Mirren.
“That brought us a lot of publicity – we were even featured in the New York Times – and a lot of donations, as the production was free to watch.”
Then the world came back, panto was back on… until it wasn’t.
James worries that it sounds like ‘one long whinge’, but really when you hear about the ups and downs this theatre has faced, just the fact that it is still there is testament to the passion and commitment of all those involved – who time and again have refused to give up on it. And James says this is true of community theatre across the country and the love it inspires among staff and performers – and local audiences.
Today, the theatre has battled back, despite receiving no direct funding – although Greenwich Council leases the theatre to them rent free.
“That is not insignificant!” admits James. “We couldn’t operate if we had to pay rent for the theatre, without doubt, so we’re very grateful. Principally now it’s about bringing a commercial mindset to the organisation” he asserts, although there is always the balance to be had with commercial successes and encouraging a variety of work and fostering riskier, less established talents.
“Our major upside is the theatre tax relief scheme, which in fact was instigated by a previous Conservative government, to try to stimulate more domestic theatre productions. Essentially if you produce a show that doesn’t make a profit, you can surrender the loss against your corporation tax.”
So does that mean they hope for theatrical failures?
He laughs – “no, we’re not like Mel Brooks’ The Producers! We would much rather have productions that are commercial successes, but what the scheme does mean is that you can get some money back against the loss if it happens, so you can be more confident about taking a creative risk, and that is exciting.”
From a business perspective though, it means that the theatre is constantly enduring a cashflow crisis – where it awaits backdated tax relief, rather than applying for Arts Council funding as before, and then being able to put on performances.
“We run a business that is breaking even or even slightly better, but the cash flow is a year behind, and that is difficult to navigate.”
The theatre is a 400 seater, and a show, running six days a week, would be adjudged a commercial success if it fills between 40 to 55 per cent of those roughly 10,000 available seats.
Like other community theatres around the country, it could opt simply to put on touring shows, rather than produce its own content. It could also put up its prices, and its bar prices.
“We’ve worked really hard to keep prices affordable,” James maintains. “And what we hope is that we continue to get support from our local audiences – if we could fill even 60 per cent of seats for one of our own shows, it would make a huge difference.
“What we’ve decided about what we put on is that we will stick to our guns and say – we’re good at this,” James continues. “And now artistically we are in a really exciting place. Our primary identity is now built around our own productions, rather than just touring shows or stand-up comedy. There’s an audience for that, and offering a stage to those other companies is important, but it’s no longer what we do all year.”
And as their artistic identity has grown, it’s become easier to recruit the kind of talent that previously they may have struggled to attract.
“Last year we produced Jez Butterworth’s The River with Paul McGann, and even with Paul attached it took us two years to secure the rights. And then we went back to Jez afterwards and asked about producing Parlour Song – and he just said yes. So we’re doing that next month, with Jeremy Edwards, Kellie Shirley and Naveed Khan in the cast.
“Our reputation is growing with good, strong shows, and relationships with writers like Mike Bartlett, Michael Frayn, Philip Ridley, Caryl Churchill, Bryony Lavery – a decade ago we wouldn’t have got close to those writers.”
So what does the future hold for Greenwich Theatre?
“We do want to see more funding, of course!’, James admits. ‘We’re putting a strategy together to apply to a host of possible supporters.
“But fundamentally, theatres survive on audiences, so we would love people to book to see a show – and to book earlier.”
For the theatre world, he says, Covid transformed booking patterns – whereas before you might look through the website or at brochures and advertising and book eight or twelve weeks ahead, in the pandemic, as he found out, entire casts could go ill, a show be cancelled, or the pandemic tiering change overnight.
“People started waiting until the very day to decide and that hasn’t gone away entirely. Even for our Christmas pantomime season, we used to sell the peak dates at Easter, but last year with three weeks to go there were still huge number of tickets to sell. Do you spend loads on marketing at that point, or hope it’ll be ok?”
James is also a passionate believer in breaking down barriers that might prevent people from going to the theatre or taking part. And having signed a 24 year lease on their building last year, they have now launched a £50,000 target fundraiser, which would give disabled access to the stage, some disabled toilet facilities, access to dressing rooms, hearing loops and even performances interpreted by either sign language or captioning.
“We’ve had a really encouraging start, hitting over 10% in a few weeks’, he says.
“My rallying cry to local people would be this – look at our programme, and there will be something that you want to see.
“It may be Jez Butterworth’s Parlour Song, it may be a well-known drama, or our new family rep season featuring all-new versions of The Three Musketeers and The Elves and the Shoemaker. Buy something you know you’ll enjoy, but then also take a punt on something you know nothing about. I can guarantee you won’t regret taking the risk.”
And you get the feeling that James, and all the Greenwich Theatre family, haven’t been afraid to take a few risks themselves, in their battle to keep this important local institution alive, and to see it flourish.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT GREENWICH THEATRE:
1) Visit their site and buy some tickets! CLICK HERE
2) Donate: CLICK HERE
3) Become a Friend of the theatre: CLICK HERE
