• last year
The sheer special liveness of theatre will be key to Anna Farthing’s time as CEO at Portsmouth’s New Theatre Royal.
Anna, who took up her role in September, has inherited a theatre which is actually doing better business now than it was pre-pandemic thanks to changes in the programming. Her challenge now is to build on that post-Covid bounce.

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Fun
Transcript
00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. It's a real
00:05 pleasure to meet and speak to you today for the first time, the new CEO of Portsmouth's
00:10 New Theatre Royal, Anna Farthing. Now, congratulations on the job and you're coming into a theatre,
00:16 well I guess any time coming into a theatre is a challenging time, but you said something
00:20 really striking just now, that audiences at the New Theatre Royal are better than they
00:26 were pre-pandemic, that's really quite something isn't it? Yes, we're really, really thrilled
00:31 actually that here at the New Theatre Royal audiences have bounced back. So we've attracted
00:36 a lot of new audiences as well, so we're seeing very strong attendance from families, from
00:44 three generation families and also from groups of young men, which is unusual for theatre
00:49 and I think it really does sort of show the population of Portsmouth. Yeah, is that something
00:54 that's changed or something you've sought as a theatre? I think that young people particularly
01:02 are really, really excited by the live experience, they're excited by things that cannot be repeated,
01:08 that's why they choose to go to festivals and camp and get muddy and cold and wet and
01:12 all the rest of it, you know, and there's a real kind of enthusiasm for immersive experiences
01:21 and live experiences, improvisation, things with participation, things that are multi-sensory.
01:27 So will those kinds of things be your priority to sort of stress the liveness of theatre
01:31 then? Is that the kind of thing you will be looking to provide? Yes, and actually fortunately
01:37 for us it's what this theatre has always provided. So the theatre was built in the 1850s and
01:43 remodelled in 1900 to be an immersive space, to be a space with really fantastic acoustics,
01:53 where the sound moves around so that laughter and applause and gasps and all of those kind
01:59 of audience reactions are carried throughout the space and they really, you really feel
02:05 it in that space. It really ramps you up in New Theatre Royal, you really sense them don't
02:10 you? The acoustics are just perfect for whatever you're sitting watching. And that's true whether
02:14 it's music, whether it's comedy, whether it's theatre or dance, whether it's a youth theatre
02:22 show where the parents are going wild and clapping and cheering, whether it's a really
02:28 tender thing where people are actually, almost little murmurs come through, it is that sense
02:36 of you'll never ever be able to experience this. These are some of the things that the
02:40 theatre is doing already, what are the things that you particularly want to bring in as
02:44 new would you say under your tenure? Well I think we're going to own this idea of what's
02:50 new at the New Theatre Royal. We'll develop this very eclectic programme which means that
02:56 there is lots of different things on. We'll develop a bit more of a daytime programme
03:00 for people who perhaps, particularly in the winter, are not so comfortable coming out
03:04 in the evening. I mean I have to say, we are very near, we're near the railway station,
03:10 we're very near great parking, we've got bus routes and cycle routes, we're easy to
03:15 get to, but nonetheless some people prefer not to go out in the evenings in the dark.
03:20 And so for that audience we'll be doing more stuff during the day. We're also going to
03:25 be working on new work, new writing, new stories, working with new companies and writers, both
03:34 locally and further afield. So that there's that sense of a continuum really, because
03:41 the New Theatre Royal is being looked after by the people of Portsmouth and we need to
03:45 listen to them. And you are very strategically sitting in front of the poster for the Panto
03:49 this year. Panto, as with every theatre of course, is crucial isn't it? Central to the
03:54 whole year, vital to the success of the theatre isn't it? Yes, and I mean obviously Pantomime
04:01 is very important to us from a financial and sustainability point of view, but Pantomime
04:06 is also the first introduction to theatre for many families, and for many families it's
04:12 the only time they come to the theatre. So it's really, really important that we honour
04:16 that and we make it the very, very best that it can be. And I'm really thrilled that we're
04:20 working with Jordan Productions, who produce Pantomimes of really top quality that are
04:27 all about audiences, audience interaction, participation, and having that really good
04:33 fun experience with proper old-fashioned jokes, proper story, story for the children, a little
04:41 bit of innuendo for the grown-ups. It's not a Panto that's about putting telestars that
04:46 really don't know how to work on the stage in front of a microphone, it's a Panto that's
04:50 actually about celebrating theatre in all its forms. So yeah, I'm really, really proud
04:55 of what we're doing at Christmas.
04:57 Fantastic, and certainly last year's Panto at New Theatre Royal was fantastic, it really
05:01 was brilliant. So more of the same please.
05:03 Thank you.
05:04 Lovely to speak to you, look forward to chatting lots more, and congratulations on the job
05:10 and good luck with it too.
05:12 Thank you so much, I look forward to speaking to you again.
05:15 Thank you.
05:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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