Hampstead Theatre 2024

Between Riverside and Crazy is a wonderful play. Glad it will have a U.K. production.

That looks like an interesting season. I'm quite surprised they are continuing in much the same vein as when they had their subsidy. I'd thought the current season's Stoppard revival and the Richard Bean play - new writing, but more lightweight than their usual output - might signal future plans for the main house. While I'd be happy to see them include revivals, it's a strong line-up and I'll probably see most of these.

I have never heard of Between Riverside and Crazy but booked because of the comments here. Sounds great!

Sounds like 2022/2023 was a disaster for Hampstead

Have to say that, when I read that article, I felt very sorry for the creatives who were named.

Perhaps it will act as deterrent from playwrights writing rubbish

And presenting it to be staged

There should be some accountability

At the end of the day its a business

Sink or swim

Hampstead main stage had some of the worst plays on in the whole UK for the entirety of last year

The box office flops were deserved

The AD is also to blame her programming is all over the place

Really she isn’t fit for that job

The annual report simply states facts, as it is required to do, as all registered charities are required to do to explain their finances.

Here’s an example. Is this untrue ? Do you want it to be omitted entirely from the annual report or covered up in some way ? Would the Charity Commissioners be OK with that ?

“The year started badly. The first production on the main stage, The Breach [by Naomi Wallace and directed by Sarah Frankcom], was a complete critical and commercial failure and had to be closed early having suffered more disappointing ticket sales than anything Hampstead had presented since 2012," she said”

I don’t believe in malice

But there is nothing wrong with being direct

It might not be a bad thing to err on the side of cautious

RC suffered the same appalling syndrome of dreadful play after dreadful play

Does someone need to tell Rory Mullarkey he ain’t very good?

Yes

I hope he doesn’t get programmed at a venue again

He has had his three strikes
These are adults choosing to write bad plays
They aren’t some sort of endangered species
Plenty of works can be revived instead of this ridiculous charitable approach to new writing

The full report is here if anyone wants to read it. Google cache link as it won't load on the Charity's Commission site for some reason.

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To be fair I think Gregg Ripley - Duggan's programming this season has been pretty good. Lots I want to see there.

To me, it shows that Roxana Silbert wasn't the right choice for Hampstead and I think that even without the ACE funding withdrawal, her days were numbered.

I think that the Hampstead report is a pretty even-handed document. It's sets out facts clearly and doesn't seek to apportion blame to any individual writer or director but acknowledges that overall the year saw very few commercial or critical successes (and even those which were still didn't break even) and that this led to a complete breakdown of the business model. It then outlines the work they did to put a buffer in place whilst they planned a new season, and how they intend to fund their work going forward. It's actually quite unusual to see a report which is quite so frank about the problems it has faced.

The Royal Court and Young Vic are slightly less candid but still outline the highs and lows, thought the Royal Court one in particular is irritatingly full of corporate speak and jargon. All three reports include full lists of the productions, writers and directors from that year. The reports can be found by searching the companies house website.

The Stage report on the other hand is by and large a cut and paste job of the three reports, with sentences and paragraphs taken out of context, to tell the Stage's own narrative - though with very little actually editorial copy or comment included. Presumably largely in order to generate clickbait headlines. Sometimes they are direct quotes - sometimes paraphrased - and sometimes, as noted above, direct quotes but with square brackets where The Stage has added unnecessary detail, like the name of the playwright and director. It also seems to slightly screw up the chronology of what happened at Hampstead Obviously they are completely entitled write what they want - but it's little wonder that none of the theatres wanted to engage with The Stage for the piece.

Oh - ha ha - you are right ! I didn't spot that - so those industry types moaning about this should really direct their anger at The Stage. Perfect. 

You can read annual reports like this by any charity, I regularly read them for a few theatres (but not Hampstead) and they are often quite interesting. 

Why is it poor form by The Stage though? It’s supposed to be a news outlet. If people read that a production has been a failure it’s very natural to want to know who commissioned, wrote and directed it. It’s the next logical question and I wouldn’t expect to have to google to find that out.