Most evenings of the past week I’ve spent a couple of hours on my backside watching people do stuff, or looking at stuff people have done, or listening to people talk about stuff they’d like to do. This is as close to a definition of what it means to be “a member of the audience” as I can find – basically it’s sitting on your arse watching much more talented people do all the work. On this definition I’ve easily put in the ten thousand hours training it’s supposed to take to make me somewhat of a master audience member.
Last Tuesday I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Leeds Grand Theatre. Interesting audience – lots of grandma’s with their daughters and granddaughters (plus one flat-capped granddad accompanying a flamboyant grandson – you could almost hear the old chap challenging anyone who raised an eyebrow, “t’ lad does football an’ all, tha ‘nos!”) They were rowdy and joyous, not shy about singing along and joining in – there was a definite sense that this wasn’t the first time many people had seen this musical – and at the end they were all (except the youngish lady behind me who constantly wore an expression like she was sat on a carpet tack) on their feet, waving arms and bawling along with “Any Dream Will Do”. I’m not one for all this interactive, participatory nonsense that’s so popular these days, and I was meant to be casting a cold, critical eye over the performance (I was given a review ticket after all, there’s professional ethics and all that) but it’s hard to resist standing up when folks around you – mentioning no names – are grabbing your wrists and tugging at your collar. Peer pressure is tangible in the audience at The Grand.
Wednesday evening I dropped into the White Cloth Gallery for the launch of the Laura Pannack, New British Naturist exhibition. The audience here was entirely different with expectations and etiquette completely opposite to the theatre. Mainly trendy twenty-and-thirty-somethings, plus a smattering of local photography club members (not that they are not trendy necessarily), they had a quieter, more reflective, almost analytical, approach to what they’d come to see. I’m much less knowledgeable, interested or comfortable with photography compared to theatre so I’m never really sure how to behave at these things or what to say (my only comment of the evening was, “that guy’s cheating, he’s wearing socks”, which is hardly an insight of thunderous import.) I’m pretty sure everyone who attended the event had a ball – and some mighty fine cocktails – but I still feel that I haven’t got my audience equipment right just yet. I’m at that consciously incompetent audience stage and learn a little more and get that little bit more confident every time I return to White Cloth Gallery.
The next day I went to an event at The Carriageworks, a cultural conversation about how to make the most of the cultural opportunities presented by the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire. To say that I was out of my depths is an understatement. I don’t have any depths when it comes to cycling. I don’t even have a dimension. I can’t quite see the point. I haven’t ridden a bike since my dad took the stabilizers off my Raleigh Nippy and I broke my glasses crashing into a garden wall across the street. Which is ironic as I’m helping edit a wheel themed zine that we’ll be publishing in the next couple of weeks (and if you want to get involved with the design and the fun bits of content then come along to the workshop this Saturday.) The event involved pitches for cycling related cultural projects – apparently there’s some cash available, who knew! For most of the time I just sat there, nodding sagely, trying to work out what any of this had to do with me. Not a bad thing, actually, as there were some genuinely surprising ideas and lots of genuine enthusiasm to link the sort of stuff I know a bit about (arts and culture) to the cycling stuff that’s a deep and enduring mystery. I think I was possibly the least informed member of that particular audience.
Last night I was at a Manic Chord performance at Temple Works. I’m not sure if I’d call myself “audience” for this one. True, I was perched on a chair drinking wine watching talented people. But I have an irrational attachment to the venue (I’ve been involved with the place for years), I know the guys in the theatre company well (and I think they are bloody brilliant, but I admit I may be biased), and it’s the sort of event I like best; small, intimate, rough, unfinished but bursting with life and energy, and with a charm and wit that you just don’t get anywhere else. The audience wasn’t huge and the demographic was narrow – committed fans I’d guess – and I reckon most of us had seen the show a few times before (it’s their Edinburgh debut and unrecognisable from the first iteration I saw in February.) The show has changed mainly owing to audience feedback, the guys have genuinely sought and responded to audience responses – and they were tinkering with the narrative and pruning dialogue over a chat over the barbecue they had put on to entice the audience to stay and chat.
All these various relationships to venues, types of art, means of cultural expression and individual performers (everyone will have their own examples, these are just a narrow, partial, personal selection) seems to me to complicate the idea that there’s an “audience” out there just waiting for arts and cultural organisations to grab them. I’m interested to find out what the people meeting for What Next, Yorkshire tomorrow think about this. A What Next spokesman said:
Our main purpose is to find new ways of engaging with ‘the public’ – our audience and visitors, and our potential audience and visitors. The task is to encourage these people to make connections between the many different ways art and culture affect and enhance their lives.
It seems to me that “connections” are precisely what’s not likely.