- The Observer, Sunday June 16 2002
The controversial theory has been floated by one of the leading figures in the British entertainment industry amid fears that lack of investment could kill off dozens of theatres.
Peter Bazalgette, the flamboyant creator of the television programme Ready Steady Cook and the head of Endemol, the maker of Big Brother, put his suggestion to an audience of theatre professionals and funding organisations in London last week.
'All I am saying is that theatre should be asking for some of the many fantastic favours that public television gets,' he explained. 'Why shouldn't there be a licence fee-style tax for the theatre?'
His proposal is likely to stoke the resentment felt towards the BBC by theatre directors, who feel television is soaking up all the country's acting and writing talent.
Raising the issue at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Summer Debate, Bazalgette called upon the Government to account for the huge difference between the funding that the subsidised theatre and public television services each receive. While the licence fee garners around £2 billion a year for the BBC, only £70 million of government money is spent on theatre.
The RSC debate centred on the impact that television has had on the theatre and several of those who spoke called upon television executives to take a more active part in nurturing stagecraft by broadcasting more performances of British plays.
'I came to the theatre through television,' said Bonnie Greer, the American playwright. 'That is where I first saw Shakespeare and that is what brought me to the theatre. People should remember that this country is known throughout the world for its theatre, not for its film, not for its television and not for its football.'
But not everyone supported the idea of throwing more cash at theatre companies. Charlie Parsons, the creator of The Big Breakfast and Survivor, said that Bazalgette's solution was absurd because far more people watch television.
Other speakers bemoaned the middle-class preoccupations of stage productions. The mounting of better, more experimental work was often not possible, they said, because of the financial risks.
An RSC poll brought out to coincide with the debate shows that 37 per cent of under-21s questioned believed that 'there is no future for theatre'. However, only 26 per cent of over-21s agreed. The poll also found that 79 per cent of under-35s had been to the cinema in the past year, while only 28 per cent had seen a play.
Adrian Noble, in his first public appearance since his unexpected resignation as director of the RSC this spring, said he believed young theatre audiences had been changed by their experience of television. 'Attention spans are much shorter as a result,' he said. 'Directors have to work hard to cope with this.'
Bazalgette's controversial proposal comes on the eve of a blistering attack on government attitudes to the theatre due to be delivered later today by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a leading light in the National Theatre. Hall is to dub Britain's support of the performing arts a 'clownish' failure when he gives the annual C.P. Taylor Lecture at Theatre Royal, Newcastle.
'The Prime Minister may talk about "education, education, education", but he might also talk about "culture, culture, culture",' Hall will argue. 'It is typical of England that the word "culture" rather embarrasses us. But then we are the only country where "intellectual" is a term of abuse.
