For the second time this year David Jason's work in television has been honoured, this time in the National Television Awards, in which he was voted Best Actor and Best Comedy Performer, and in which the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special was voted Best Comedy and Frost was nominated for the Best Drama award. In May he was voted Best Actor in the Royal Television Society awards.
Liverpool Playhouse Goes into Administration
The Liverpool Playhouse has gone into administration at the request of its directors, with the expected loss of ten technical staff jobs. Although the theatre has made a small operating profit for the last year, it has not been able to earn enough to make substantial repayments on its debt, so accountants Ernst and Young have taken over the running of the theatre. According to administrators Trevor Birch and Don Bailey, the move was made to ensure a "long-term" future for the theatre.
It has been suggested that a single Trust may run the Playhouse and the Everyman, as has happened in Sheffield (Crucible and Lyceum) and Edinburgh (Festival and King's).
Arts Council of England chairman, Lord Gowrie, has resigned "to return to his business interests". This leaves ACE with no one at the top, since general secretary Mary Allen, who left in May to take over Genista Mackintosh's post at the Royal Opera House, has not yet been replaced. This is a further blow to ACE which has not been far from controversy for quite some time.
Actor Iain Anders, who played Supt. McVitie in the ITV series Taggart has died in hospital, in his sixties.Chichester Needs Half a Million
The Chichester Festival Theatre needs an annual subsidy of half a million pounds if it is to continue to present plays all the year round, director Duncan Weldon has said. Although the summer season is profitable, it is not enough to cover winter costs, and so, without the subsity, it will have to revert to a 20-week summer season, going dark between September 1998 and May 1999. Equity has instructed its members not to sign new contracts for work in the commercial sector on or after 6th April, 1998, in advance of negotiations on a new pay deal, in which the union is demanding a minimum of £250 a week, as agreed with the subsidised sector.Blackpool Opera House has cancelled its Christmas show Fame because of poor advanced bookings - almost three months before the show was due to open. Although the show is doing well elsewhere in the country, Blackpool audiences have shown little enthusiasm, and now the theatre may be dark over the Christmas period.