London Calling

For many non-UK based theatregoers, London immediately conveys images of a still-thriving classical drama, West End glamour, history, and, of course, Shakespeare. Both London and New York have flourishing theatre scenes and few tourists' visits to either city are complete without a theatrical experience—commercial for some, experimental for others. As cultural tourists, we have often chosen London and the UK for its theatre—among our visits, a millennial trip to attend a cultural studies conference in Birmingham provided a chance to see the medieval York Cycle in the Gothic York Minster, as well as Vanessa Redgrave as Prospero in the Globe's midnight summer solstice performance of The Tempest. In December 2003, we took a week-long trip to London specifically to see Nick Hytner's production at the National's Olivier Theatre of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. This two-part production was an adaptation by Nicholas Wright of a brilliant trilogy of books which we had eagerly read aloud. With a curious nine year-old in tow, our tourist-driven visit spanned the theatrical spectrum from the spectacle of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to a trip to historical Stratford where we all were riveted by Dame Judi Dench's return to the RSC stage in a production of All's Well That Ends Well. Even a brief one-night stopover last year between a red-eye from New York and a flight the next evening to Spain allowed us to fit in two matinees and one evening performance (including the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio London production discussed in this section by Nick Ridout).

While we have been frequent visitors to London over the years, this past fall we took a large leap and relocated to the UK to take teaching positions. This move necessitated a recentering for us—from the New York theatre scene we knew so well to the theatre scene in London, which, despite a passing familiarity with many of the key figures and theatre spaces, remained largely unexplored for us. We are just beginning to search out the lesser-known venues, and the rising generation of performers and companies.

Our journey through London is still in its infancy, but already we sense a palpable love of theatre and performance in this city. The tourists and regulars not only visit the West End for the big Broadway-style musicals, but also fill the National Theatre, and search out performance in out-of-the-way venues, museums, and site-specific locations. Performance seems to fulfil a more central role in the consciousness of this city than it does in New York; we have had conversations with cabdrivers about the merits of particular directors and historical theatrical figures. Everyone who finds out we've lived in Scarborough (a seaside town in the North) for the past year and are teaching theatre, refers immediately to Alan Ayckbourn, who in addition to just having written his sixty-ninth play, runs the town's Stephen Joseph Theatre. A recent survey by the Arts Council of England found that over a quarter of the population has attended at least one play in the past twelve months, with a slightly larger percentage having attended at least one musical—the numbers for London are somewhat higher than in the rest of Britain. According to this study, the percentage of British theatregoers is more than double that of the U.S. Far more densely concentrated than the U.S., the UK population is roughly 60 million people, of whom nearly 12 percent live in London. Nearly 80 percent of UK residents believe that there should be more funding for the arts and cultural events. All television owners must pay an annual fee to the BBC; this goes to produce a range of cultural programming, including a wide array...