Underfunding has regional theatres facing final curtain

When Lesley Manville was working as an actor in the 1980s, there was ample opportunity for her to perform on stage and plenty of choices of shows for audiences to watch. But slowly,over the decades, she has sadly watched theatre after theatre close.

- BRYONY GOOCH

Theatre owners across the country have told The Independent that they worry every day about underfunding putting their theatres at risk. As they struggle to keep their venues afloat, regional theatre might be facing its final act.

Ms Manville called for better funding for theatres around the UK as she accepted her Best Actress gong at the Olivier Awards for her role in Oedipus at the Wyndham Theatre, London. “There is not enough money thrown into regional theatre,” she said as she picked up the award.

She later told the BBC’s Today programme: “It’s tragic because those theatres serve their communities. Sometimes, travelling to go see a play, or a ballet, or an opera, might be prohibitive. And certainly from a performance point of view, there’s less opportunity to work.

“When I was younger, you went anywhere to do a play. It’s going to be a diminishing discipline because there’s not always the amount of stage work available for them to go and do. The arts has to, for our sanity, continue to be funded.”

The two-time Olivier winner isn’t the only actor concerned about the demise of regional theatres. Shereener Browne, soon to appear at Chichester Regional Theatre in The Government Inspector, said regional theatres are vital to the ecosystem of the arts.

“If we do not fund them properly and allow them to flourish, then actors emerging, and more established actors too, do not get the opportunity to flourish – to take risks with their arts and their creativity, which then is fed up the ecosystem to the larger theatres and the West End,” she told The Independent.