Here's the thing. We were a Nottingham based company for 10 years, we've worked at the Playhouse, the Arts Theatre and the Lakeside. We have a massive support base in the city yet nobody invited us to perform there. Last night we gave a good account of ourselves in Derby. If you don't know Derby is Nottingham's whipping city and local east midland rival. For 2 Notts lads it is hard to take that the theatre's you've ground up with, supported and been a part of so long don't return the love.
Anyway, on a positive note all the Nottingham friends got a day trip to Derby.
I received this from Adam who saw the show in Taunton
Hi
I watched your show on Tuesday in Taunton and wondered if you'd accept some constructive criticism from someone who has no business giving it. If you don't then please ignore the following paragraph. I enjoyed the first half very much and found it very amusing and informative but felt quite let down by the second half. There seemed to be an attempt to combine information and comedy throughout the show but there were very few laughs after the interval with only the football re-enactment sort of thrown in at the last minute and very little about your trip after the Q&A. It felt at times like it was becoming a lecture on the evils of Racism and less of an entertainment show. There was also the sense that you were also kind of preaching to the converted, I wasn't expecting many Racists to pay to come and see a show that was going to attempt to dispell their bigotted views using facts and logic. That's not the sort of thing racists enjoy. It felt like something you'd get in a school assembly at times.
I don't want to appear too negative as I did enjoy it very much, I just felt that you professed at the beginning to be entertainers and the entertainment seemed to be missing from the second half, a bit. I will definately be coming to see your next production if you bring it down this way next year. As I said before, feel free to ignore all this as I'm not an actor so you probably know a lot more about what you're doing than I do.
Cheers Adam
I though long and hard about this then set Daniel Hoffman-Gill on him.
Dan's reply
Hi Adam,
Mark forwarded your email to me and I felt compelled to respond because the work is close to my heart and any critique demands a level of response, at least to present the other side of the argument.
The second half is indeed a combination of comedy and facts, that is intentional and the pay-off for the first half, an effort to educate and inform. As for few laughs, indeed Taunton was an audience that did not buy in as the majority of our audiences have but I can assure you, the second half in the majority of our gigs has been the funniest for many of our audiences. The joy and terror of art is that it is so subjective, there is no perfection, what you dislike, many like and vica versa.
As for it becoming a lecture, good entertainment contains thoughtful messages to in-act change in the spectator, the accusation of preaching to the converted is the furthest one from the mark and perhaps shows that you've missed the point.
We were illustrating the thin end of the wedge, it starts with many leading newspapers and media outlets perpetuating xenophobic myths, I can assure you that many audience members will read those newspapers and those headlines, including in Taunton and take those myths on board, it does not make them racist in the sense you think of, the stereotype racist we depict but rather it makes them racist in the insidious and 'quiet' fashion. This is a problem and if people disagreed with these headlines they would stop buying the newspapers, as you can see from the circulation of the Daily Mail, The Sun and other media outlets that spread xenophobia and lies, they do not. These are the people we are talking too and this is, based upon our audience demographic, most of our viewers.
Indeed, we have had people walk out, offended by their attitudes being challenged, so the idea that 'racists' don't come and see theatre is way off.
I think perhaps the idea that the second half wasn't entertaining was due to you switching off and refusing to engage with the naunced content and engaging with your own prejudice, which we all have, preferring instead to see broad brush strokes. You may accuse us of failing you, not entertaining you but live art is a two way process, engaging with the content and us giving you our all and you in return doing the same, our show exposes those that will hold back, we'll try and take you with us but if you resist to much, we can't force you.
Cheers,
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill
Mark forwarded your email to me and I felt compelled to respond because the work is close to my heart and any critique demands a level of response, at least to present the other side of the argument.
The second half is indeed a combination of comedy and facts, that is intentional and the pay-off for the first half, an effort to educate and inform. As for few laughs, indeed Taunton was an audience that did not buy in as the majority of our audiences have but I can assure you, the second half in the majority of our gigs has been the funniest for many of our audiences. The joy and terror of art is that it is so subjective, there is no perfection, what you dislike, many like and vica versa.
As for it becoming a lecture, good entertainment contains thoughtful messages to in-act change in the spectator, the accusation of preaching to the converted is the furthest one from the mark and perhaps shows that you've missed the point.
We were illustrating the thin end of the wedge, it starts with many leading newspapers and media outlets perpetuating xenophobic myths, I can assure you that many audience members will read those newspapers and those headlines, including in Taunton and take those myths on board, it does not make them racist in the sense you think of, the stereotype racist we depict but rather it makes them racist in the insidious and 'quiet' fashion. This is a problem and if people disagreed with these headlines they would stop buying the newspapers, as you can see from the circulation of the Daily Mail, The Sun and other media outlets that spread xenophobia and lies, they do not. These are the people we are talking too and this is, based upon our audience demographic, most of our viewers.
Indeed, we have had people walk out, offended by their attitudes being challenged, so the idea that 'racists' don't come and see theatre is way off.
I think perhaps the idea that the second half wasn't entertaining was due to you switching off and refusing to engage with the naunced content and engaging with your own prejudice, which we all have, preferring instead to see broad brush strokes. You may accuse us of failing you, not entertaining you but live art is a two way process, engaging with the content and us giving you our all and you in return doing the same, our show exposes those that will hold back, we'll try and take you with us but if you resist to much, we can't force you.
Cheers,
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill
See you soon
Indeed Mark, it is a bloody travesty that Nottingham will not have us.
ReplyDeleteTheir loss.