Embargo: not for publication or broadcast before 00:01 am Monday 29 May
A trip to the seaside used to be associated with the Punch and Judy man, the end-of-the-pier show and the summer variety season. But as we enter the summer season of 2000, a traditional part of seaside life appears to be on the verge of extinction.
This summer, the last Punch and Judy man has left Brighton, there are only a couple of end-of-the-pier shows left in Britain, the summer variety show may be following quickly into the history books and some seaside theatre managers complain of vanishing trade and unruly audiences.
The disappearance of a whole way of seaside life is charted in the new issue of Cultural Trends, the quarterly arts journal, in a survey by Steve Hayler of Canterbury Christ Church University College. This issue of the journal is dedicated to an analysis of the state of the performing arts, including music and the theatre.
Once, no resort would be complete without a ten-week summer season featuring the top radio starts of the day like Tommy Handley, George Formby or Gracie Fields. But last summer, only seven variety shows and two music-hall shows were listed in traditional fashion in the May issue of the industry magazine Encore. The same source charts the number of summer activities being staged having fallen by an alarming 27% since 1996. Summer seasons are now being replaced by year-long programmes, usually made up by one-night acts of music, tribute bands and comedians.
The change cannot be blamed on falling visitor numbers. An estimated 135 million people spend up to four days at a British seaside resort every year – a similar level to the late 1960s. Instead, a survey for Cultural Trends reveals that some entertainment managers feel the demise of the summer show is due to a lack of artists with sufficient pulling power, the high cost of genuinely popular stars, changes in public taste and the fact that day-trippers are now less likely to attend live entertainment, especially in the evening.
Most entertainment managers now believe there would be very little impact if summer seasons were to close for good, marketing the end of a British summertime tradition. One even complained of ‘poor behaviour’ from audiences not familiar ‘with theatre etiquette.’
Margate is typical of the kind of resort now under threat. Once Laurel and Hardy and the Beatles graced the stage at the Winter Gardens. Today, there is no longer a summer show. Sixty per cent of smaller resorts like Margate lost nearly half their market share since 1970 and some have now been forced to look elsewhere for tourists. Worthing council, for example, no longer regards the town as a traditional seaside resort and encourages tourism based on the town’s proximity to the South Downs instead.
‘Many small and medium sized resorts are struggling to achieve economic stability’ said Sara Selwood, editor of Cultural Trends. ‘Over half of seaside theatres are run by local councils but some are struggling to remain viable and can’t find private partners willing to help. Despite this, live entertainment is still essential to the economic survival of many resorts but it needs to keep pace with the cultural and technological changes affecting the performance arts as a whole. The summer show may simply be a casualty of changing times.’
As part of its survey of the performance arts, Cultural Trends 34 also contains chapters on the British theatre and music industry.
British theatre may pride itself on its attraction to Hollywood stars, but it is fast becoming recognisably American in other less appealing ways. In the West End, musicals now represent 43% of all performances and account for as much as two-thirds of ticket revenues (not far short of the 75% recorded on Broadway). By contrast, modern drama constitutes just 16% of all performances and brings just 8% of ticket revenues.
Tastes are changing in other ways too. The Mousetrap may be the longest running play on a British stage, but it represents a dying breed. Only 5% of all British theatre performances were thrillers in 1998, whilst musicals accounted for as much as a quarter, up from just 9% in 1984.
This reliance on the musical is one of three ‘imminent dangers’ facing the theatre, according to author Michael Quine from City University. Steeply rising prices and changing patterns of theatre-going also give cause for concern.
Ticket prices have been rising well ahead of inflation for several years without affecting attendance figures, and the author questions how long this ‘financial miracle’ can last. The average cost of a night at a West End theatre was found to be £27 per person, excluding travel and the price of a meal, which can increase the bill to £100.
Despite investment in new audiences, theatre-going is diminishing and is the preserve of older, predominantly female audiences. The number of people attending more than one play a year fell from 10.6% in 1987 to 8.9% in 1998 and although regional theatres have made headway in attracting young people, such shows bring a disproportionately low amount of revenue (19% of ticket sales revenues for 28% of performances). The lure of lucrative musicals is just as strong outside London.
The UK may still be at the forefront of Europe when it comes to music – but today it is as consumers rather than performers. An analysis of top European hit singles for a single quarter in 1999 showed that the UK has been overtaken by Germany as the continent’s creative force. One in five top singles artists came from Germany, compared with 17% from the UK.
Europe may be dancing to its own tunes, but the UK still leads Europe in musical consumption. The British buy over 4 albums a year on a per capita basis, well ahead of supposedly more musical nations like France (2.3 per capita), Ireland (2.1) and Italy (0.9). The grey market in Britain looks especially healthy: 21% of music sales were made by the over 50s in the UK, compared with just 10% in Germany.
Strong home-grown musical tastes were evident in Greece, Italy, France and the UK, according to Dave Laing, of the University of Westminster, whilst Austria, Ireland, Belgium and Sweden showed weak domestic sales. Austria remains the capital of classical music, which represent 12% of their entire sales, compared to 7% in the UK.
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