— read write play

ImprovEverywhere‘s latest project – bringing Grand Central Station to a halt, and applause from confused if delighted bystanders – has started to spawn UK copies. There’s a Great Trafalgar Square Freeze planned for London on 16th February, and an Edinburgh Waverley Big Freeze on 24th, both outside of the group’s global network.

ImprovEverywhere’s work doesn’t really fit the mould of many other improv companies. The scenes they stage – to generate public chaos and delight – are heavily structured and timed. The appearance of a spontaneous mass event (the hallmark of ImprovEverywhere’s work) requires careful planning.

It’s slightly more interesting to think of ImprovEverywhere’s work in the tradition of Augusto Boal’s invisible theatre – most infamously staged on the Paris Metro – though without the deliberate attempt to provoke and involve an unsuspecting audience. ImprovEverywhere’s pantless subway riding experiment in ten cities in January of this year would seem to look like spectacle rather than direclty political theatre (though, again, you could argue for a link to public happenings and the early work of The People Show).

It’s also true, though, that some of ImprovEverywhere’s “missions” do seem to invite a specific social comment.

Found while carving through a mountain of research into arts funding in the UK – and while trying to put together a picture of the kind of theatre companies who lost out in the recent cull – here’s a snapshot of how money was distributed at the end of the 90s. Of the funding given to music by the Arts Council of England, about 80% went to opera; opera tickets were subidised per ticket to the tune of £12.07 in 1995/6, rising to £12.75 in 1999/2000.

For context, jazz – which has a rougly comparable audience size – was subsidised per ticket at 15p in 95/6, rising to an enormous 27p in 97/8, before settling at 25p in 99/00. Those figures are taken from a report produced for Jazz Services, an organisation funded by the Arts Council of England to promote the growth and development of jazz within the UK. Yes, the irony is evident.