The theatre company that could provide the blueprint for life after the arts cuts

Josh Neicho
31 Aug 2010

Bloodied but unbowed, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt returns from Edinburgh, where he tried to reassure TV executives at the International TV festival that he really does not believe the BBC “needs Rentokil”, to face more hostility. The arts world is still in uproar at Hunt's abolition of the UK Film Council and in anticipation of up to 30 per cent cuts to Arts Council England's roster of regular funded organisations. Last month, the leaders of the National Theatre, Tate, the Barbican and the RSC appealed to Hunt's ministerial colleague Ed Vaizey to say that while they recognised the need for the pain to be shared, cuts of that scale would see theatres going dark and galleries closing.

But Hunt and Vaizey are keen to move the debate on from cutting, towards encouraging arts companies to think about ways they can obtain philanthropic support, in addition to public funding, to sustain themselves in the long-term. And Vaizey's office has found a perfect example of innovative funding arrangements for theatre in an ambitious young company called HighTide.

Set up by actor Sam Hodges three years ago to produce the work of new playwrights at an annual festival in Halesworth, Suffolk, it boasts Bill Nighy, Sinead Cusack and David Hare as patrons, a remarkable board and claims funding from a broad mixture of foundations, corporate and state sources. It has seen income grow from £63,000 in its founding year to £317,000 in 2008-9 and £410,000 in 2009-10.

The main point of interest for the Conservatives is the company's relationship with PR firm Lansons Communications in the form of an ongoing exchange of services. Lansons founder Clare Parsons struck a deal whereby HighTide shares some of the firm's Clerkenwell office space and benefits from all overheads — IT equipment, telephones, meetings rooms, postage, worth £65,000 a year. In return, members of the HighTide company offer Lansons' staff and clients training in theatre techniques.

HighTide's 26-year-old artistic director Steven Atkinson's duties have included taking a workshop with a FTSE chief executive in which he showed him how to seduce the cameras and using his directorial skills to help Lansons' young PR team “understand themselves better”.

“As an artist, you take responsibility for your life and work — that's what other industries envy in us,” he says.

HighTide puts on performances and Q & A sessions for Lansons and its clients, and Parsons takes a keen interest in the company's creative success.

Early triumphs have included Adam Brace's Iraq drama Stovepipe being named one of the 10 best plays of the last decade after its transfer to London and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's Lidless earning a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh festival this year.

“I get in at 9.30am and normally don't leave until 9pm, and I am usually in on a Saturday or Sunday,” says Atkinson. He talks about a shift taking place from the egocentric artist “who is obsessed, thinking only of their own creativity, to an emerging generation making their own opportunities”.

Others in the theatre industry question how relevant High Tide's arragements are for larger theatre companies who need more space and hard cash. Atkinson replies that he would like to hear the counter-arguments against a set-up that makes him feel “a master of my own destiny”.