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Strength in DepthDateline: 29th May, 2005Those who have read my review of the Jake Thackray musical Sister Josephine Kicks the Habit will know that I enjoyed it and think it is a very good piece of music theatre. I was there on the press night - the only reviewer present, although York Evening Press reviewer Charles Hutchinson came the following night. Producer Ian Watson, who is no callow newcomer to theatre, confessed hmself to be somewhat disappointed at the turn-out. He had invited all the nationals, including the first national critic to have review Thackray, and sent press releases to all the theatrical press, print and online. Stories appeared in the local press and on all the Jake Thackray websites (and on the BTG), and most listings pages carried it. The Independent carried a story in the Music section and Radio 2's Folk News mentioned it, but, for the most part, it was ignored by the theatre press. Why? Because it was thought it wouldn't be any good? Because no one under the age of fifty has heard of Thackray? Or because it wasn't in London or on the major theatre circuit? I suspect the latter. If it had opened at the York Theatre Royal or the West Yorkshire Playhouse, it would have been noticed and reviewed, but because it opened in Helmsley, little more than thirty minutes' drive from either of those theatres, probably no one even considered the possibility of sending a reviewer. I suppose we should be grateful that the national press are no longer so London-centric that they ignore anything anywhere else and are willing to go (occasionally) to places on the edge of the known world, like Newcastle, for example, or Scarborough (and they'd have to pass through Helmsley to get there!). OK, Sister Joephine is not Billy Elliot - indeed, I suspect the latter's wages bill for a week is less than has been spent on Sister J since its conception - but it is just as much part of the tapestry of British Theatre and should be worthy of notice. It makes one wonder just how much first class theatre is going on in small venues throughout the country which no one but local people see or even hear about. The problem is, Sister J and its like are small-scale. A musical with just six in the cast? Come on! We want big casts, high-tech, big names. But the small scale, the small casts, the limited budgets, all concentrate the attention on the writing and the performances. Neither writer nor performer can hide behind razzle-dazzle and hype: they've got to be spot-on or the show, and them with it, dies on its arse, as the much less polite world of light entertainment has it. And I am not going to put forward the argument that it is in this type of show which the West End stars of the future cut their teeth. It isn't true: these performers and writers are not "cutting their teeth" - they are talented, experienced and skilled already. One of the reasons that British theatre leads the world is that we have strength in depth, but if we concentrate just on the top level, then demoralisation will set in lower down. And that, in the long run, does theatre no good whatsoever. I'm not suggesting that Billington should go to Helmsley or Spencer to Muckraking on the Wold, but I cannot believe that the Guardian, Telegraph et al do not have capable stringers throughout the country. And don't respond that the readers wouldn't be interested: the continual growth of the BTG, which does focus attention on small companies throughout the country, is proof enough that that is not true.
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