theatreVOICE

Watching Noel Fielding performing at the Royal Albert Hall the other night, as part of the week of gigs there in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, I was struck by two things. Firstly, that part of Fielding’s star-quality resides, rarely for a stand-up comedian, in his flamboyance. He dresses glam-rock (make-up, girly accessories, outrageous sequined suits) and he’s got the life-style to back it up (celebrity mates, an emerging band for his act the Mighty Boosh, a sideline in modern art). He is, as the vocal admiration of his female fans when he saunters on stage attests, ‘cool’.

So secondly, I got to wondering why so few of today’s playwrights measure up on the ‘cool’ front. Why does one not encounter today’s playwrights as ‘pin-ups’ or see them in fashion shoots or watch them crash onto chat-show couches? Granted, theatre isn’t a mainstream culture; at least, ’straight theatre’ certainly isn’t, as Kevin Spacey recently pointed out, getting much exposure via the mass broadcast media. And playwrights, as writers rather than ‘doers‘, are by default more likely to be shadowy, reticent figures. But still, given that so few of the names familiar to regular theatregoers are ‘big’ enough to sell their plays in the West End in their own right wouldn’t they - and the status of theatre more generally - benefit from a concerted effort to sharpen up their acts?

A cult of celebrity attached itself to the rakish charm of John Osborne in his youthful heyday - and spilled over into an accompanying fascination with the working-class playwrights of his generation, the so-called Angry Young Men. You could say that back then theatre mattered more to the public at large (or at least was made to do so because it mattered more to those at the top of the media). But Osborne’s obstreperous personality was undeniably a rich source of fascination. Were he to have happened into view today, he would be just as much the object of gossip and reportage.

How would one define ‘cool’? There are intrinsic and extrinsic factors. ‘Extrinsic’ factors might include penning a massive debut hit; being hailed for youthful precocity; the good fortune of being at the right place at the right time (the Royal Court, say, under George Devine or Stephen Daldry), the happenstance of controversy . ‘Intrinsic factors’ would include not only the ability to write brilliant original work but also to display conversational wit, and a fearlessness before wider artistic and social questions; beauty, looks and charm of course all help but the key would be that nebulous necessity called ‘character’, imprinted on the page of a script and in the force of public exchanges.

Who of today’s playwrights would merit the tag of ‘cool’? And would it matter to them if they did or didn‘t? Just to throw a few names into the pot, I suppose I’d single out the following. Of the older gang, it’s hard not to include Harold Pinter, Simon Gray, Tom Stoppard - the Jaggers of their milieu. More recent arrivals would take in Antony Neilson - not only because of his early ‘in-yer-face’ shockers but because of his daring, idiosyncratic working method; Mark Ravenhill because he continues to create event theatre (Shoot/ Get Treasure/Repeat), push himself forwards as a public figure and engage in provocative polemic; Martin McDonagh has been quiet for a while but you know that whenever he re-enters the scene, there will be a buzz about it; there’s style there and an appealing air of uncompromising arrogance. And of the younger crop, I’d cite Debbie Tucker Green, simply because letting the work (high-class, experimental, daring) speak for itself builds its own mystique; and Polly Stenham seems to have the full-house, in terms of youth, looks, and a daring debut turning into a West End hit any day now. As one journalist noted of That Face - ‘With a sound-track of Sleater-Kinney, the Pipettes and Yeah Yeah Yeah, the play was unapologetically aimed at the iPod generation: ‘I wanted it to feel like a live gig'’.

There must be a heap of other names - I’d be interested in hearing suggestions; but more importantly, I’d be interested in hearing whether people think theatre has been going through a period of relative ‘uncool’ - and why. Is it the fact that playwrights can now adopt ideas of ‘career-progression’, thanks to the nurturing processes of new writing houses, that has killed some of the risk-taking flamboyance? Is there too great a fear, thanks to the neglect of once-hip playwrights, of falling out of fashion - and therefore refusing to enter the race in the first place? In an age of ideological cross-dressing by the main parties, do playwrights suffer for not being able to brandish fierce political convictions? Or perhaps none of the above matters; and no one needs worry about cool, its death, or re-birth, or otherwise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 9:06 am, by Dominic Cavendish and is filed under Audio 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.