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From Bankside to the West End: a Comparative View of London Audiences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Caroline Gardiner
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Abstract

The received wisdom regarding the composition of the audience for Shakespeare's theatre has shifted in accordance with the social assumptions of the times – from Alfred Harbage's assertion of a popular, homogeneous audience, evolved for the egalitarian 'forties, to Ann Jennalie Cook's argument for a ‘privileged’ audience, put forward in the elitist 'eighties. While Andrew Gurr's Playgoing in Shakespeare's London corrects the worst excesses of both views, it remains dependent upon a great deal of inference from inadequate documentation, often directed to other purposes, and sometimes upon necessary guesswork, however rooted in common-sense. Caroline Gardiner teaches and researches in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University, whence have emerged the most detailed attempts to ‘profile’ the theatregoing populace of contemporary London: and here she suggests that some of the approaches and even the findings of modern audience researchers may shed new light on the controversy. Sometimes the results are surprising – and include the possibility that, relative to the pool of population available, theatre is now actually a more popular activity than in Shakespeare's London. However, she concludes that, overall, the percentage attending the theatre has remained remarkably constant, and constantly low.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 37 , February 1994 , pp. 70 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes and References

1. Mann, P. H., ‘Surveying a Theatre Audience: Methodological Problems’, British Journal of Sociology, XVII, No. 4 (12 1966).Google Scholar

2. National Opinion Polls, Theatregoing in London, unpublished survey conducted for the Society of West End Theatre, April 1981.

3. Ibid.

4. Harbage, Alfred, Shakespeare's Audience (New York, 1941);Google ScholarCook, Ann Jennalie, The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London 1576–1642 (Princeton, 1981);Google ScholarAndrew, Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

5. Gurr, , p. 4Google Scholar

6. Levin, Bernard, ‘The Sickness at the Heart of London's Theatre’, Sunday Times, 29 01 1978.Google Scholar

7. This figure is derived from the parallel study to that conducted for SWET, conducted by Michael Quine of City University for the TMA (Theatrical Management Association), whose membership covers virtually all but the smallest fringe theatres and companies outside London. Both the TMA and SWET studies include commercial and subsidized theatres and companies, though there are far fewer of the latter in the West End.

8. Gurr, p. 85.

9. Clode, Charles M., Memorials of the Guild of Merchant Taylors, Vol. I (1875), p 578,Google Scholar quoted in Harbage, p. 13.

10. Harbage, p. 41.

11. Cook, p. 17.

12. Cook, p. 192.

13. Cook, p. 193.

14. Most notably, she makes use of figures from Rowse, A. L., The England of Elizabeth (London, 1950)Google Scholar, and Ramsey, Peter, Tudor Economic Problems (London, 1963).Google Scholar

15. Cook, p. 179.

16. Gurr, p. 3

17. Target Group Index 1989–1990, conducted by BRMB for the Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB, 1990).

18. Harbage, p. 46.

19. Harbage, p. 43.

20. Harbage, p. 176–7.

21. The Johannes De Witt sketch of the Swan playhouse from 1596, in a drawing by Arendt van Buchel, is reproduced in most illustrated theatre histories of the period, and can be found in Gurr, p. 17.

22. Lord Mayor to Lord Burghley, 3 November 1594, quoted in Gurr, p. 210.

23. Target Group Index, op. cit.

24. The source is the JICNARS national readership survey, June 1990, reproduced in Advertising Association, Marketing Pocket Book 1991 (London, 1991).Google Scholar

25. Cook, p. 94.

26. Cook, p. 279.

27. Cook, p. 181.

28. Cook, p. 182.

29. HMSO, Employment Gazette, 06 1992.Google Scholar

30. Walshe, Peter, ‘What Price the Live Arts?’, summarized in The Insider, Arts Council, No 10 (Spring 1991), p. 7.Google Scholar