Time for Theatre Programmes to Exit Stage Left?

Front cover to 1923 programme for Robinson Crusoe at the Theatre Royal Nottingham (image courtesy of ourtheatreroyal.org)

Working in a theatre archive, one of the many pleasures is opening an old box or receiving a large envelope stuffed with show programmes.

This is often accompanied by a slight musty smell, and various degrees of deterioration, including the usual rusty staple marks, the bane of any paper conservationist.

Trove such as this can reveal yet another light musical starring John Hanson or the discovery of a global movie star hidden in the cast list at the start of their career.

Theatre programmes such as these are often our only means to access performances from decades ago. Whilst of course the memories are important of those who see these shows, a programme can make the intangible tangible.

Yet, with environmental concerns and the COVID pandemic restricting handling, the programme, in some cases, has reverted to becoming a digital download.  Does this spell the end of a long run for the traditional theatre programme?

The future of the theatre programme has been debated for the last few years.  Critic Mark Shenton, recipient of many a free programme from press nights, acknowledges that they are part of the theatre experience for many, but ultimately dismisses them as not useful.

At least Shenton donates his to a drama school library, Susan Elkin categorically states that “programmes matter”, but then … [take deep breath] … she throws them in the bin!  The theatre programme is therefore seen as ultimately disposable, with no intrinsic value, beyond the opening night review.  They are perhaps the first to go when going full Marie Kondo.

Such as the email I received from a member of the public, who’d discovered at home some World War Two era Theatre Royal Nottingham programmes. I was asked, “Did I want them or should they just bin them?”  Never was an email reply more quickly sent.

If not unwanted, they are just ridiculed.  And there is something in that.  It can sometimes be hard to correlate the balding, saggy-faced actor you’re watching on the stage, with the leonine, freshly-scrubbed from drama school, twenty-something Spotlight image you’re staring at in the programme.

Programme biogs can be awful, particularly when actors dedicate their performance to parents, spouses, pets or whoever. In these cases, each programme should come with a complimentary sick bag.

However, the list of an actor’s previous plays, films and TV shows is fascinating and useful for a great many of us.  Although I do remember comedians Punt and Dennis starring in a 90s production of All in the Timing at Nottingham Playhouse.  Their programme biogs provided a long list of play titles, such as Hamlet, The Birthday Party, The Cherry Orchard, Waiting for Godot and The Rivals, as productions they have never been in.

Subverting expectations about the content of a theatre programme can work very well.  The 2014 programme for The Play That Goes Wrong interweaves the real actors with details of their characters in separate listings for The Murder at Haversham Manor, their show within a show.

Deviating from a list of previous shows can be a risky manoeuvre for your programme entry.  However, Ronnie (A Windmill in Old Amsterdam) Hilton’s biog from the 1961 production of Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Theatre Royal Nottingham is a joy to read …

“He doesn’t seem too remote; his voice doesn’t float down from some crooner’s cold Parnassus.  It come unmistakeably from a warm flesh-and-blood young man, like the chap sitting beside you listening to the radio, or the fellow who has just tapped the bowl of his pipe gently against the fender before taking the dog out for a run.”

Ronnie Hilton bio from programme for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Theatre Royal Nottingham, 1961. (image courtesy of ourtheatreroyal.org)

Seeing hobbies listed in a programme biog can also cause one to recoil.  According to the 1988 programme for Scales of Justice, actor Karen Henson “spends her leisure time driving, swimming and keeping very fit”.  It’s nice to see the same actor cringe over thirty years later when you present them with this damning evidence.  “I blame my agent!” was Karen’s retort.

Theatre programmes are just full of adverts, is another well used attack on them.

‘Twas ever thus.  From the simple fold-out Victorian programmes, to the more generic ones of the 1950s and 60s, to the glossy brochures of present day, advertising has always been part of the programme. From Dr Budd’s Unfailing Pills for Females in 1885 to the Tele-Circle Sectional Upholstery in 1956, these adverts tell us how we used to live and so are vital for social historians, as well as, and let’s not forget this, a useful source of income.

Cigarette advertising is aplenty for many of these mid to late twentieth century programmes.  I have seen the genuine shock on children’s faces when they see smoking promoted so blatantly, thus enabling lengthy discussions about the impact of such images and why they ceased in 2003.

Advertisement for John Player Special cigarettes from leaflet for National Theatre production of She Stoops to Conquer, Theatre Royal Nottingham, 1984 (image courtesy of ourtheatreroyal.org)

So, the theatre programme can be a rich, educative tool, as well as informing us who designed the set for a particular show.

This same learning and information can be utilised by future historians with today’s programmes.  But will they have the same material to use?

Companies ranging from the Barbican to This Is My Theatre have now moved to digital programmes.  The latter stating that this is due to “Reducing Paper Handling at Our Shows”.  Yet, the belief that COVID can be easily passed on by touch and surface-transmission is now questioned.  Theatres are safer places for audiences with full and proper ventilation, rather than removing programmes from sale.

The environmental question is a more difficult one.  At the end of a run, many programmes are not sold and and are thrown away.  Yes, they are sent for recycling, but do such large numbers have to be printed in the first place?  This is perhaps due to companies having to order such large runs to get the best price from their printer.  This is a practice that could change.

I would still strongly advocate for a traditional programme.  Yes, digital ones can provide us with all the necessary show information we require, but will the websites they are currently stored on still be accessible in the future?

This is not being against this brave new virtual world, especially as I have been involved in digitising around 500 programmes for the Theatre Royal Nottingham’s digital archive.  This has certainly opened up the theatre’s past for so many people, but is backed up with most of that material also being readily available in physical form.

Also, do we really want to advocate audience members looking at their phones in a darkened auditorium to check that the actor they are currently watching was once in Line of Duty?

The physical paper programme just seems the correct format.  Quentin Tarantino’s glorious novelisation of his 2019 film Once Upon Time in Hollywood works because of its pulpy paperback design.  It shouldn’t really be read on a Kindle, in the same way theatre programmes are not really meant to be on your phone.

Some cultural historians would argue that I am placing too much emphasis on the theatre programme as a heritage object or “thing”, when the theatre heritage discourse should be more focussed on understanding the whole “cultural practice” [1]

I agree, but I just don’t want audience-goers of the future to not have the same Proustian childhood rush I once had when seeing the 1976 programme for Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Wolverhampton Grand.  A show I remembered fondly from a family Panto trip, made flesh once again by seeing and handling that actual programme. It seemed to prove that I was there.

Hybrid seems to be the buzz-word nowadays.  Maybe the physical and digital programme can exist together, with some of those articles about past productions, analysis of a play’s themes and interviews with the creative team placed online.

As Lyn Gardner argued in 2018 in The Stage, programmes need to change, without the need to cancel them altogether …

“Theatre programmes have not changed for decades, while theatre itself has. Why don’t more companies and theatres see the programme as a way of continuing appreciation and conversation around a show after the curtain has fallen rather than a cynical revenue generator?  Why don’t they ensure the programme is designed with the same care and attention as the show? Then it would become something beautiful and worth paying for – something to be cherished and revisited even as the memory of the show fades.”

So rather than just ditching theatre programmes altogether, let’s look for changes in their content and environmental impact.  Let’s investigate how digital can be offered alongside. Let’s even appreciate the adverts. But please, PLEASE, don’t just bin them.

[1] Smith, L. (2006), Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge