The multi-Oscar-winning English costume designer Sandy Powell, who will make film history this month when she accepts a prestigious Bafta fellowship, is “terrified” by the lack of experimental live performance being staged in Britain, she says.
Powell is one of film’s most garlanded talents, working regularly with Martin Scorsese, but she now fears that the connection between a thriving alternative theatre scene and the commercial world of mass entertainment has been cut.
“It’s a desperate situation and means we’ll get formulaic kinds of creativity. A lot of the fringe theatre work is not out there any more because old funding routes have gone, and that was always how you learned the value of taking artistic risks,” she told the Observer.
Great, so those who make lots of money from the commercial theatre should be spending some of that on supporting their feedstock, their supply line, in fringe theatre.
Job done. Just as Porsche is funding synthfuel……
I thought Sandy Powell wrote The Boy Friend.
Or in other words, there’s no profit in commercial theatre.
And at US$45 a gallon, there’s no profit in Porsche’s synfuel. But of course Porsche is waiting for the governments to ban fossil fuels. And no doubt it’ll then use its eFuel to greenwash them.
“those who make lots of money from the commercial theatre should be spending some of that on supporting their feedstock, their supply line, in fringe theatre.”
That’s assuming that the supply line is any good, of course.
Ottokring: That was Sandy Wilson. Sandy Powell’s the bloke who said, “Can you hear me, mother?”
Sam
Oh yeah. Thanks
And Jenny Hanley who used to say “Can I do you now, sir ?”
I wish…
Boganboy,
“Or in other words, there’s no profit in commercial theatre.”
It’s overwhelmingly an ageing audience and kept afloat by pantomime season.
And nowadays, if you want to make a film, you can do it for almost sod all. Why pay people to go on stage every night instead of once?
As for experimentation, digital has opened up film to everyone. You can shoot a film on your phone, edit it with £50 of software on your PC. People are doing all sorts of stuff with film, and without a load of Arts Council bureaucrats throwing money at them.
Well when you can get a government grant, you tend to spend all your time on getting them. None on getting support from the commercial area.