Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division) (Credit: Highsmith, Carol M., photographer. They are finding inventive ways forward now, funding bodies need to follow suit.Uptown Theater, Washington, D.C. The New Vic, Claybody and other regional companies deal their audiences top-quality theatre by shuffling complex commitments – professional, community, education and outreach. Professionals? Amateurs? Indistinguishable! Roles are cleverly distributed, performances well-crafted, and everyone looks their part(s) in Allsopp’s splendid period costumes. All suits (and gowns) are equal, here, among the eight actor-musicians and dozen-strong community ensemble, accompanied by members of the Acceler8 brass band. Yet Cassidy’s Card does not trump the pack. His lovable rogue wins our hearts (alongside those of Jessica Dyas’s spendthrift Ruth and Jenny Murphy’s loyal Nellie), even when he plays low, squeezing high interest from desperate tenants. These sites of Denry’s adventures are vividly evoked through skilful movement and clever manipulation of minimal props (Beverley Norris-Edmunds’s choreography Dawn Allsopp’s design).Īs Denry, Gareth Cassidy blends the physical adroitness of silent movie comics with the sly lightness of Alec Guinness in the 1952 film version. Fast-flowing action, under Conrad Nelson’s assured direction, races us through time and space: town square solicitor’s office grand ballroom with swirling dancers widow’s hovel bustling seaside promenade storm, shipwreck, rescue newspaper office football stadium. Deborah McAndrew’s sharp, funny and faithful adaptation follows the picaresque progress of Denry Machin, the eponymous “card”, from lowly solicitor’s clerk to youngest-ever mayor of a fictional Potteries town. The Card is a 1911 comic novel by local Staffordshire lad made good Arnold Bennett.
The reality for regional companies, and their audiences, is not so divisive – as demonstrated by this entertaining new production from the New Vic, with Claybody Theatre. The response? Instant Twitter uproar, with the proposition being interpreted as setting “ one type of art against another”, in the words of Nicholas Serota, replying to Hytner a few days later. This would, he proposed, complement the Arts Council in the same way Sport England complements UK Sport. I n a recent article for the Guardian, the theatre director Nicholas Hytner argued that Arts Council England funding should be directed towards professional performances, while a new body should be set up to encourage and support community, education and outreach programmes.
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