cultural vision

By Catherine Jones on May 31, 06 02:33 PM

There has been a lot of discussion this week about Robyn Archer's first 'offering' in situ as artistic director for the Culture Company.
Supervision, it was revealed, cost a lot of money to bring to Liverpool but bums-on-seat wise it was a damp squib.

I was one of those 'invited' to see the show rather than a paying customer and I was interested rather than entralled by it.
But the whole issue raises important questions about art and culture.
Should it be seen as a failure because the Royal Court didn't sell out every night? As someone (who shall remain nameless) said to me, we're getting on to rocky ground when it is solely ticket sales which dictate whether a new piece of art or theatre is presented to the people of Liverpool.
Why shouldn't people be challenged? Why should popularity be the only rule of thumb?
If it was, we would have six Empire Theatres in Liverpool feeding us a constant diet of big budget musicals populated by household names.
Now many - me included - thoroughly enjoy nights out at the Empire watching big glitzy productions, but we also appreciate more cerebral fare at the likes of the Everyman or Unity.

Equally, it did cost a lot of money to bring Supervision from New York and despite the publicity and drum-banging, the idea of it failed to grab the public's imagination.

Robyn Archer needs to balance her desire to present something new to the people of Liverpool with more of an understanding of what they might like and appreciate.
It is all very well sitting at home in Australia working up an artistic programme for 2006 Liverpool Performs, but how can you gauge the tastes of people 12,000 miles away? It's inevitable that the programme will simply reflect Robyn Archer's own tastes and those of the people she mixes with.

And if Supervision is anything to go by, there are going to be a lot more questions asked before the end of 2006.