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THEATRE IS BETTER THAN FILM
A public debate at the Menier Chocolate Factory,
Friday 27th October, 6pm.
Proposing the motion is the Guardian theatre critic MICHAEL BILLINGTON, alongside RUPERT GOOLD, Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre Company (formerly the Oxford Stage Company).
Opposing the motion is NIK POWELL, executive producer of films including The Crying Game and Director Of The National Film & Television School, alongside EKOW ESHUN, Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
The journalist PATRICK MARMION will chair the meeting.
The motion proposes that theatre is a superior art form to film and that film has become enmired in commercial self interest and is largely involved in promoting cultural conformity. Theatre by contrast is artistically freer, cheaper to make and more readily responsive to social change. It is less enslaved by genre, it is better placed to deal with complex ideas and it is more democratic both at the point of production and reception.
On the other hand it can be argued that in reality theatre is simply a dinosaur struggling to survive on a diet of government subsidy. Most of its repertoire is drawn from the past, while as an experience it is physically uncomfortable and piously virtuous. It also happens to be terminally parochial and constitutionally unable to reach large international audiences without recourse to over-priced, lowest common denominator, franchise musicals, It is time theatre was taken to Switzerland and allowed to perform an assisted suicide.
The hour long forum kicks off with drinks at 6pm to loosen up. The debate itself starts no later than 6.30pm. Each of the four speakers has three minutes to make their cases. After this discussion will be open to the floor. In the interests of variety, members of the audience allowed to speak for no longer than one minute at a time. Ten minutes before the end one speaker from each side will sum up for no more than two minutes. There will then be a vote and the debate will adjourn to the bar.
The debate is organised by Soap Box and the Menier Chocolate Factory theatre.
Soap Box is a forum intended to tackle the big issues in culture and society.
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