Do Manchester's theatres have a class problem?

By Robert Pegg

Immediately after the Labour landslide of 1997, the Arts Council spent five years and a considerable amount of public money finding out why the arts weren’t accessible to, amongst others, the working classes. The completed report, ‘New Audiences’, was declared a great success by the then Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell. It wasn’t.

If it had been a success, why, in the intervening years would the Arts Council have asked the same question again? Why, most recently, would the University of Sheffield’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre have published their report, which revealed that only 8% of people working in TV and film are from working-class backgrounds? To many of us who have tried to make some headway into those industries, the rhetorical question asks itself: that many, eh? 

The most recent British Social Attitudes Survey revealed that 52% of people described themselves as working class, while 77% said that social class affects someone’s opportunities ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’. Only 2% thought it didn’t matter at all. Despite the decrease in traditional working-class occupations, the percentage of people identifying as working class has barely changed in the last 40 years. Regardless of income or occupation, people in the North and Catholics are much more likely to identify as working class than anywhere else in the country. So as a former Gorton monastery altar boy I feel I have the necessary qualifications to wade right in here. 

All of these reports posed the same question: why aren’t the arts accessible to minorities and the working classes across the country? The uncomfortable answer is that the arts are not attractive to the majority of the population simply because they don’t speak to them, listen to them, recruit them or represent them on stage. The BBC won’t even use the term “working class”. When applying for one of their many writers’ programmes, I found they default to the term ‘lower socio economic status’ which is defined by what your parents did when you were 14. 

This is a plainly ridiculous metric, impossible to check and easy to lie about. Things might change when you’re 15 or 16. Taking a still image from an entire film will not give you an accurate idea of the full picture and what a person's situation is when they are 14 is just a small part of the character arc of their life story. 

When I was 14, my dad was an electrician and mam was a dinner lady. Both had served their country in the war. Like so many young men of the time, dad lied about his age to go and serve. He worked as a jobbing spark when Top of the Pops was first broadcast from a disused chapel on Dickenson Road in Rusholme. A stoic man of few words who didn’t speak often, when he said something he meant it, which he certainly did the day he told Mick Jagger to f**k off. Whatever attitude he had towards deference and authority I inherited it. I was the only member of my family to pass the eleven plus and I went to St Bede’s Grammar School. I was expelled after a year for bad behaviour and left school with no qualifications at all.

Dad was from Aston in Birmingham and mam, who never uttered a profanity in her life, was born in Withington and grew up in the small part of the Oxford Road corridor that wasn’t either part of the university or the hospitals. She lived on Nelson Street where 20 years earlier, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Suffragette movement. I often wonder if it was the same house.

I was born across the road in a house that no longer exists and the site of which is now part of the sexual health clinic on Upper Brook St. Just as well I will never get a blue plaque. I share a birthday with Sylvia Pankhurst and was born the year she died. There is no logical reason to be proud of this, but I am. You have no control over where you are from, but you should be able to have some sort of control over where you want to get to and be able to help others do the same. 

Being working class then was defined by the area you lived in, the school you went to, your educational achievements and particularly whether you were in higher education or not. It was not necessarily what your parents did for a living but whether society would come to a standstill if they stopped doing it and went out on strike. It was whether you produced something tangible at the end of the working day. Whether you worked for someone or if they worked for you, who controlled how much you earned and whether you owned or rented your home. The list goes on and any attempt to pinpoint what exactly working class means will always be open to debate. Perhaps like art itself: it’s difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. 

Today, the term would be even more difficult to define. Manufacturing has been outsourced; call centre workers don’t produce anything tangible. Deliveroo workers don’t have oppressive bosses — theoretically, they’re their own boss, but that doesn’t mean they’re not downtrodden. Perhaps it can be tied to a few qualities: Lower wages, casual contracts, not having much bargaining power over how much you get paid. 

In his biography of Friedrich Engels, The Frock-Coated Communist, Tristram Hunt includes an interesting anecdote. He points out that in 1840, Manchester was developing into the hotbed of radicalism that Marx and Engels hoped to turn to their advantage. Hunt relates how the French critic Leon Faucher — who would go on to become Prime Minister of France — attended the newly-built Hall of Science at Castlefield.

On doing so, he remarked that the working men of Manchester were far more articulate, knowledgeable and cultured than the bourgeoisie of Germany with the works of Voltaire, Rousseau and Paine at the top of the average reading list maintained by the respectable working classes. By contrast, reading the works of Byron and Shelley were likely to bring you into disrepute. So whatever being working class meant then or means now, it does not mean you are culturally inferior, but rather avaricious.

The intellectual expectations of your average working Mancunian were high. At around the same time the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer thought that the arts “must always remain sealed books to the dull majority of men… just as the society of princes is inaccessible to the common people”. Stuffy and elitist as this may sound, he actually had a point. The arts should attract the best of us. What it should not do is assume that because you are from a certain class, you can never be part of the best. 

The problem we have with the arts today is that they have been handed over to the dull men and women, who are in charge of our institutions and so few people get to truly shine unless you have the contacts; the money and the correct opinions. The predominantly middle and upper-class world of the arts see working class lives in purely Hobbesian terms: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. The Arts Council, created in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War to allow access to all, now exists to fund things that only people who work for the Arts Council want to go and see.

The comedian, broadcaster, writer and actor Lucy Beaumont recently said in the Guardian that she is so sick of the lack of progress in the industry in terms of class she is at the point of jacking it all in. Actors David Morrisey, Imelda Staunton and many others have said the same thing. Truly, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

I noticed when I started writing for the theatre a few years ago that there was and still is very little idea of how to recruit, nurture and employ the working classes. The gatekeepers of the creative industries, the producers, directors and commissioning editors tend to be from the middle-classes and because class structures are essentially tribal they will look to their own to fill vacancies. Perhaps they are wary of people trying to smash through the class ceiling in case they get hit by some of the falling shards. As a natural consequence of this, people from outside of that narrow class will disengage because they are not being spoken to. 

The opening of Media City in Salford in 2011 was meant to address some of these imbalances but for all the good it has done it might as well be on a different planet. How many people from the nearby Ordsall estate do you think are employed at management or creative level at Media City and not just cleaning the toilets and offices or working in the lower-paid hospitality sector? It wouldn’t be so bad if theatres didn’t also routinely ask people to give up months of their time for free to appear in expensive productions which charge the public a small fortune in ticket prices.

In 2017 the Royal Exchange put on The Suppliant Women, an ancient Greek play by Aeschylus. Much of the play is performed by an all-female community chorus, all of them unpaid. The play was introduced as being performed as it would have been in the time of Aeschylus with the actors doing it for free as though it was something to boast about. Things have changed in the last 2500 years, not least the fact that women now have voting rights, get paid for what they do and people tend to take a pretty dim view on the exploitation of teenage girls. 

In case you were wondering what The Suppliant Women is about, it’s about feminism. Who would have thought it? Little wonder there is such a cultural divide between the classes when some people can afford to give up their time for free while others from less fortunate families struggle to get time off at their own expense. The Suppliant Women was rightly praised and won an award at the Manchester Theatre Awards which probably looks very nice on someone’s shelf. Not as nice as wages in the performers’ bank account though.

The following year, the same Royal Exchange staged a production of Maxine Peake’s Queens of the Coal Age and the call went out for performers to appear in the community chorus, once again unpaid. Here was a play about the exploitation of workers during the miners strike and its aftermath actually exploiting workers in a play written by a famously working-class performer who once said of her socialist politics, “that’s the root of who I am”. Such hypocrisy. Bear in mind that a couple of tickets for someone on national minimum wage who wanted to go and see it would have set them back a day’s pay. Is it any wonder why none of this appeals to over half the population? 

The Royal Exchange receives some income in the form of government grants. It should be a condition for anyone in receipt of public money to pay all of your performers and staff. If not, then cut off the funding altogether. Nobody has ever given a BAFTA acceptance speech and thanked the people who exploited them when they were trying to get into the business.

At least TV and film pay the extras. I once got £40 for just mooching around at the back in an episode of Cracker in a Didsbury restaurant I was working as a chef at and was getting paid anyway. Easiest money I’ve ever earned. Same with Prime Suspect when I made a fruit salad for Helen Mirren to nibble on during a scene. I wasn’t even on screen but they still paid me just for chucking some cherries in a bowl. If I can get paid for that, there is no reason actual performers in the theatre can’t. 

I have to say at this stage that I have had some small success as a writer myself. I’ve had a piece performed at the Contact Theatre, various places across Manchester, Hebden Bridge, Nelson and Oldham and a couple of plays which were professionally produced in St Albans. I’ve been in rehearsal rooms and auditions here in Manchester where a director has asked actors to “lower your accent by a couple of classes”, a note which grates more than slightly. 

What do they mean by “lower” and why aren't actors available with that natural accent anyway? The answer is because lower means less than, working-class accents are not seen as different, they are inferior and the actor with that natural accent just isn’t around to be employed. 

All this aside, I’ve never made any money from my writing and I couldn’t possibly earn a living as a writer, particularly in theatre. My own experience is what you might describe as fringe productions which have a very enthusiastic base here in Manchester. But moving from there to anything more ambitious is difficult unless you have the contacts, the money and a little bit of luck. 

When I was staging a play that was shortlisted by the BBC, The Script, I wrote to HOME to enquire about costs of rehearsal space and theatre hire. I got a reply telling me they only work with their own chosen partners so there was no point me even asking. They didn’t say how I could become one of their chosen partners even though by that time I did have a few credits under my belt. Fair play to HOME, they do now appear to have changed that policy and from September they will be offering rehearsal space at the Whitworth Arches for free. It’s a start, but so much more needs to be done.

Having had ample opportunity to watch the middle classes, your opponents, I soon came to the conclusion that you are right, perfectly right in expecting no support whatsoever from them. Their interest is diametrically opposed to yours though they always will try to maintain the contrary and to make you believe in their most hearty sympathy with your fates. 

That last paragraph is not mine, by the way. Far too eloquent for me. Friedrich Engels said it in his Conditions of the Working Class in England. His statue is right outside the front door of HOME. Maybe they should listen to him more often. It always amuses me that old Freddie now has his back to the poor working-class areas of Red Bank and Angel Meadow he used to write about and is looking out towards Cheshire where he much preferred to spend his time anyway. The very fact he stands outside HOME is a reminder that artistically, Manchester is a necropolis. 

The most talented artist or writer in the world will never make it without a certain amount of luck and the right connections. Shelagh Delaney had Joan Littlewood. Paul Abbott, probably the most successful television writer of the last 20 years, was initially sponsored by Alan Bennett. Trevor Griffiths had the newly founded Granada Studios close by and was lucky to be picked up by them.

The BBC used to give us Play for Today and likewise ITV had Armchair Theatre which showcased new and emerging talent like East End working-class boy Harold Pinter and Welsh “Bevin Boy” miner Alun Owen, both of whom went on to great things. Concentrating on writing, direction and acting these productions needed little by way of budget and could afford to take risks. Today, big names and even bigger budgets are everything. Theoretically, with the opening of Aviva Studios (home to Factory International) then everyone in Manchester and the surrounding areas now has those same opportunities as Delany, Abbot, Griffiths, Pinter and Owen. We shall see.

Factory are asking for bold, ambitious proposals so I wrote to them back in January with an idea to adapt Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago for the stage, an ambitious project which would employ hundreds of artists, workers and technicians. I am not arrogant enough to think that they would be prepared to take on such a risk for a relatively unknown writer so I did state in my proposal that a big name should be attached to it — my suggestion was Christopher Eccleston. If it works, it would be genuinely world beating. 

I wanted to subvert the working-class stereotype and not just get working-class actors in the main parts but to also utilise serving and former prisoners as part of the Manchester University drama group, Theatre in Prisons and Probation (TIPP) project. To date, despite reminders, I have heard nothing. Not even a “thanks, but no thanks”. Rejection is something you have to get used to as a writer. Like finding out there isn’t a single political party that represents your interests you just have to get accustomed to the disappointment. But politeness, as mam used to say, costs nothing.

I opened this article with the Labour landslide over a generation ago. It looks likely that history is about to repeat itself, maybe as tragedy, probably as farce. Their manifesto promises to break down barriers to access to arts, music and sport. But as we’ve seen from 1997, this will not necessarily prove to be the case. Access to the creative industries is as difficult as it ever was and in many ways worse. Reports, studies and statistics will change nothing. What is needed is a solid commitment, some cash and a complete overhaul in cultural attitudes and prejudices amongst theatres, television, film and, while we’re at it, publishing, which faces all of the same problems and prejudices when it comes to working-class writers.

In a speech she made in January, the shadow minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Thangam Debbonaire confirmed her support for access to the arts and alluded to her dancing days in 1980s Manchester. This does not bode well. As we have all come to know by now, past allusions to Manchester’s night time culture usually mean you’re completely out of ideas about anything. If things are to change then here are some ideas that can be done locally irrespective of whoever is in government:

Let’s start with the Arts Council: If they’re going to throw money around like a drunken sailor on shore leave they can at least chuck some towards people who don’t have the contacts necessary to guide them through it. It would do an enormous good if their representatives, who are based right here in Manchester could go out to fledgling applicants and actually speak to them and give them advice on navigating their way through the labyrinth of Arts Council England applications.

But it’s not just about those handing out the money — those profiting off the performing arts scene can also take action to change things. Big name actors should refuse to appear in productions unless everyone on stage and off is paid. Reviewers should refuse to review those productions and if they do they should say at the top of the review that many of the people involved are unpaid. 

Factory International now has the size, money, sponsorship and clout to set up its own modest production company. At the very least Factory should be commissioning plays from working-class writers to record and produce as a podcast. Get them out there and if they’re successful, give them a full production. Get practitioners out to community centres and schools and just invite people to come along. There is a natural performer and storyteller in every classroom in this city. Start looking for them. Start leading the way.

Introduce a 50p levy on all theatre tickets to go towards creatives from lower income families to cover their cost of travel costs, loss of earnings for auditions out of the city and Spotlight subscriptions, an essential tool for artists to stay in the game. Offer more internships for people from disadvantaged backgrounds and bloody well pay them.

I hope that things will get better — but largely, I doubt that they will. It feels like the arts are increasingly seen as an add-on — a ‘nice to have’, if you can afford the price of entry.  But if the arts are meant to civilise us as society and they close the doors to a large section of that society then we will, ultimately, become uncivilised.  

More and more these days, the cultural landscape of this city seems like its physical one, highlighted by its skyline. It’s bright, modern and exciting from a distance. Somewhere a person could make work they believe in, you think. But as you get nearer to it the vista becomes less impressive until you’re right at the foot of a shiny new edifice and it’s not impressive at all because all you can see is stone and glass. You’re looking back at yourself and you don’t have a pass to get in. It’s suddenly, resoundingly clear: you don’t belong here. At this rate, perhaps you never will.