The Robbers: a show that gives more than it takes

After all my whinging, last night I had the best night in fringe theatre in two months sitting in one of the plush cinema seats at the New Diorama Theatre. This new adaptation of 18^th century German playwright The Robbers by Daniel Millar and Mark Leipacher was big, sexy and sophisticated (I honestly didn’t mean to make it sound like Sophia Loren – maybe their own adjectives are better: fierce fast and furious). I wish I knew more people in London so I could recommend they go see it as unfortunately the audience was a bit small last night. I wonder if it’s just an urban myth that audience numbers need to equal ‘the cast size plus one’ before a show can go ahead? My UK colleagues have never heard of such a rule so maybe I made it up…

The Glass Menagerie at the Young Vic was also excellent. Despite the auditorium being a strangely large cavernous space (imagine Belvoir with five times the ceiling height and a balcony), everyone in the room was completely involved in the action on stage. I’m guessing that if the performance was any less engaging, it would be very easy for a show to fall flat in that venue.

Anyhoo… I don’t intend to turn this blog into a theatre reviews site. There are enough people writing their own online already and frankly, apart from the company, who really wants to hear someone else’s opinion? Unless you get some sort of sick pleasure in seeing other people’s hard work getting picked to pieces, in which case you should subscribe to a site like The West End Whingers. Like I do.

Speaking of giving and taking away, I’ve recently learned that cuts to arts funding have meant that every organisation - from the National Theatre down – is required to apply for their funding as if for the first time. Basically everyone has until March 2011 to justify their existence and will know by September what their financial future will look like. I guess it never hurts for organisations – especially those that have been around for a while – to re-examine themselves and look for new directions to grow or collaborate. What's the expression? Adapt or die? This time next year the UK arts scene could look very different!