Written evidence submitted by the National Theatre
Contextual information on the National Theatre
The National Theatre is a London-based theatre, producing work for our home on the South Bank, for the West End, on tour across the UK and internationally, and for broadcast to cinemas worldwide. Our programme is broad and inclusive, appealing to the widest possible audiences with new plays, musicals, re-imagined classics and work for young audiences.
We use our public funding to maintain artistic risk-taking, accessibility and diversity. We do all we can to keep ticket prices affordable and to reach a wide audience across London and the UK.
Our New Work Department collaborates with hundreds of artists each year to develop work for our stages, exploring a diverse range of progressive new voices and forms, and supporting practitioners through development and training.
Our extensive Learning programme offers talks, events and workshops for people of all ages in the Clore Learning Centre, and reaches nationwide through programmes such as Connections, our annual festival of new plays for schools and youth theatres. Every UK school can stream a selection of our productions in class, for free, using On Demand in Schools. Online, there is a rich variety of innovative digital content on all aspects of theatre.
1. Which programmes best demonstrate the positive social impact that participating in sport and culture can have on the five central themes of this inquiry?
1.1. The National Theatre commissioned a 2017 study with Queen Mary University about one of our main nationwide youth programmes, ‘Connections’.
Connections is an annual, nationwide festival of new plays for youth theatres and schools run by the National Theatre. The participating companies choose one of 10-12 new, specially commissioned plays and develop a ‘home performance’ in their local community. The production is then developed with professional feedback and transferred to a professional local partner theatre. In 2017, National Theatre offered bursaries to over 46% of groups participating (56/120), targeting youth companies facing the most difficult economic and social circumstances, correlating with the most barriers to participation in the arts.
The report evidences the importance of Connections as a creative and cultural activity, building and creating communities among young people as well as empathy and understanding for other communities in society.
The groups featuring in the 2017 study are:
> Greig City Academy
Mixed 11-19 academy in Haringey, North London. Student cohort is 96.6% BAME backgrounds, 83% eligible for free school meals, 65% with English as a 2nd language.
> Langley Theatre Workshop
Youth group at Burnside Community Centre in Middleton, in the top 20 most deprived local authorities in England with 34.3% of children from income deprived households.
> CYA@HOME and Community Arts North West
A theatre group formed in partnership for Manchester, which to recruits a diverse group of young people and young (unaccompanied) refugees and migrants.
1.1.1. Community
Research suggested that Connections created empathy and understanding for other communities in society among participants.
Theatre and performance encourages participants people to stand in the shoes of others and to understand diverse perspectives. The process promotes a ‘rehearsal’ for a more socially cohesive and accepting society. The themes of the plays commissioned encourage young people to look within and outside the group at the different life experiences of other groups of people.
“The reason I enjoy theatre so much is you just really have to let go of yourself and you just have to really think about being someone else.”
Connections helps young people to learn about the experiences and emotions of another community. This is also testament to choosing to do Extremism by Anders Lustgarten which helped young people to consider and reflect on the consequences of certain actions and prejudices that exist in society. Also, by intervening in the kind of behaviour in the play, young people suggested they felt they had built the skills in order to stop it if it manifested in real life:
“I think its gets us to think about what we’re saying to other people and not be mean to other people and like if someone else is getting bullied. This play made us realise that we need to stop it and do something about it.”
Young people expressed a sense of pride for their community and that they found strength through one and other. They articulated, with such strength and power, the ways in which they feel marginalised as young people and the power and possibilities that theatre offers to their identities - showing young people in a different light focusing on their power, skills, ability as a community.
1.1.2. Education
Participants also reported the benefit they perceived in education:
‘It makes you really confident. Last year, I couldn’t speak in any of my lessons I would just like sit quietly and listen to my teachers but, even they’ve said this to me, that I’ve gone really confident a lot in lessons and I think it’s all because of what I’ve been doing here.’
“I’m in year 10 and apparently I’ve been improving really well that’s something my teacher said and she asked me am I still doing this drama thing and so my teacher asked if she could come and watch it.”
1.1.3. Careers
Following participation in Connections, participants said that industries started to feel like a more viable option in the future and something that they wanted to pursue and felt more confident in doing.
1.1.4. Wellbeing
The aural evidence suggested that participates used Connections to actively take steps to look after themselves and their wellbeing. They acknowledged that Connections was a way to take a break and take time out from their schedules and experience of everyday life. Participation in Connections also enabled young people to move away from the experience of negative and stressful situations. Instead, they were able to step out of the pressures placed on them and relax and have fun.
‘I’m in college and college is always stressful. It was like a break for me to do something different that made me feel less stressed but it was really fun.’
‘It keeps me out of trouble.’
2. How can access to cultural and sporting professions be improved to enable greater diversity? How can the Government build a pipeline of talent?
2.1. Subsidy of access and participation programmes
Access to cultural professions begins with participation in cultural events and activities. Pricing and audience development schemes, schools and local community projects have a significant financial impact, and government subsidy and philanthropy are absolutely indispensable in helping cultural organisations achieve wider access and participation.
2.2. Creativity in education
The route by which all children in England should, in theory, have access to participation in creativity and the arts is at school, regardless of socio-economic factors, school type or location.
Schools develop skilled and qualified creative talent for our sector - whether those children go on to become actors, designers, computer programmers, stage engineers, accountants, or producers.
2.2.1. Decline of creativity and arts subjects in education
Unfortunately, creativity and arts subjects are being squeezed out of school time, particularly in secondary school. This reality is borne out statistically, whether you consider teaching hours, employment of specialist teaching staff, budget, or creative GCSE entries.
This has, and will have, a material effect on the diversity of the pipeline of talent for the creative industries.
2.2.2. Conclusions of head teacher roundtables on arts and creativity in schools
The National Theatre convened a series of 12 roundtables with theatres and head teachers across the country. Schools reported on their experience, revealing recurrent themes. Key findings:
2.3. Recommendations for supporting access to creative careers
2.3.1. Offer stronger, more prominent, and more consistent messaging on the importance of the creative industries and creative skills in school.
Taking this opportunity in major speeches, statements and policy announcements would go a long way to improving public perception of the importance of arts in school and the value creativity to the UK, aiding diversity of the talent pipeline.
Stronger rhetoric would allow the government to highlight and celebrate the successes of existing investment it makes in our world-leading creative industries, and materially improve the profile of existing creative opportunities available to young people. Highlighting creative skills and participation also easily ties into the government’s social mobility messaging.
Currently, inconsistency prevents the message cutting through for what should be an inspirational good news story for on successful UK industry. For instance, Philip Hammond’s Autumn 2017 Budget speech praised the creative industries as ‘a beacon to the world’, but spoke exclusively about the benefits of STEM skills, teaching and investment.
2.3.2. Support the sector in improving careers advice and information for the creative industries
Understanding of the creative sector amongst pupils, teachers and parents is generally poor, and the sector would benefit from the convening and penetrative power of government in addressing this issue. The industry is made up primarily of SMEs, which leads to a fragmented provision of information and lower visibility. Pupils, teachers and parents generally lack awareness of the kinds of careers that are available, with a perception amongst many that jobs are poorly paid, insecure, or not open to those without existing links to industry.
3. Why has the Government not co-ordinated its efforts more effectively?
3.1. Creative Education
3.1.1. To the external eye, the industrial priorities of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy seem in conflict with the priorities of the Department for Education.
3.1.2. Creative skills have historically been seen as a ‘nice to have’. These skills are deprioritised under current education policy – in a financial environment where schools are stretched for the ‘essentials’, creativity and arts subjects have been the unintended victims of EBacc and Progress 8. However, the Creative Economy now accounts for 1 in 11 UK jobs and the Creative Industries are one of the five priority sectors in the government Industrial Strategy. In addition, in the context of increasing computerisation creativity, problem solving and emotional intelligence are critical skills for the workplace. The Creative Industries have spoken clearly and repeatedly about the increasing talent pipeline problem for our industry in the current situation, which is in addition to concerns about the diversity of that talent.
3.1.3. It is unhelpful that different arms of the government do not currently appear to be acting in support of one another. This could be due to a combination of factors. We would speculate that an unyielding commitment to existing education policy is deepened by the political toxicity of a policy U-turn. There are also many who would say that easing financial pressure on schools in the name of art and creativity would also be problematic at a time when all public services are operating with the tightest of budgets.
3.2. The Social Impact of Culture
3.2.1. We are in no doubt that the inquiry will receive many submissions from colleagues in the sector who specialise in creative community projects. The benefits of creative and expressive activity can touch on all the areas covered by this report, including mental health, crime reduction and community engagement. We would suggest that achieving more positive outcomes in these areas through enlightened early intervention should ease pressure on the public purse further down in the line.
4. Where are the examples of departmental best practice and how could it be shared?
4.1. The recent Industrial Green paper formally recognised the importance of the Creative Industries in economic strategy for the first time. In this paper, the Business and Cultural secretaries jointly commissioned an independent review into ‘how the UK’s Creative Industries can help underpin our future prosperity’ by Sir Peter Bazalgette. This was a great example of cross-departmental working, consulting effectively with our industry to advise on an unprecedented sector deal.
4.2. At a recent meeting, the new Under-Secretary of State for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, Michael Ellis, spoke about his plans to take Schools Standards Minister, Nick Gibb, to see schools in his constituency who are successfully using dance and drama to improve results across the board. This is an excellent example of a Minister fully using his resources and constituency links to advocate cross-department, bridging the gap of understanding within government on an important policy issue.
February 2018