London's longest-standing artistic director talks to Naima Khan about forty years of change.
I made a mistake not turning on the lights in the tiny computer graveyard that exists in a hidden corner of Spoonfed Towers. It's now getting dark and I face stumbling over a heap of keyboards to get to the light switch, whilst Sam Walters is on the other end of the phone asking if there's any reason online publications can't publish long-form reviews. Which is weird, because I'm supposed to be interviewing him.
Walters is about to complete 40 years as artistic director at Orange Tree Theatre and has found a far greater interest in his theatre's milestone from websites that have been around for a fraction of the time. His crisp voice sounds slightly disappointed when he says, “We haven't had much, as it were, printed press interest.” But then he takes on a hey-ho tone and says, “it is perhaps a little surprising to someone of my great years, because it's a bit incumbent on you now, if you have an anniversary, to try and celebrate and attract attention to yourself. It's a crowded world.”
By his own admission, he's a bit of a “non-party man” and from his quiet, transformative post he's witnessed a myriad of moments that deserve celebrating in as much glory as the theatre's fortieth anniversary. “The first time we produced a leaflet,” he says, “and the first time we had a proper poster, we definitely celebrated. It was around our tenth birthday, we were in the room above the pub. And then of course...” He pauses. “You know, I can't remember anything about our twentieth birthday because it was around the time when we were opening the new theatre.”
Unlike so many of the pop-up theatres that plant themselves for a limited time in London's trendiest boroughs, the idea of the Orange Tree's longevity had been around since its early years. “This possibility was hanging like a carrot in front of my nose,” says Sam, “from about 1973. It didn't happen of course until 1991.”
While he likes the idea of pop-up theatres, Sam points out that for the venues established in the same era as Orange Tree, like Soho Theatre and The Bush, it was the Arts Council that helped their hopes for endurance, as well as a local connection and an ability to further develop what's already been achieved.
Recent revivals of The Making of Moo, Reading Hebron and Vaclav Havel's The Conspirators have helped The Orange Tree to retain this stature, as well as providing a nod both to the theatre's contemplative and discerning local audience and to the writers it's established relationships with. In true Orange Tree style the upcoming plays Next Time I'll Sing To You and The Charity That Began At Home take a more philosophical slant. It's this way that The Orange Tree continues to compete with the more central London theatres, that always draw in the critics. Although, Sam's noticed that their reviews seem to be getting shorter...
“Am I right in thinking,” he says, “that there's no reason a reviewer on a website shouldn't be able to write a long review?” And so we launch into a discussion of what readers want and what editors want and who do theatres want to review their plays anyway? And that's before we get to the beast that is Twitter, which Sam thinks could be a step too far for critics. “I'm told also that reviewers may be being encouraged to tweet as soon as they leave a theatre,” he says. “Now, this could be disaster couldn't it? If a national newspaper critic is encouraged to tweet, 'a hit a hit a hit!' or 'this is a poorly acted, inadequate, third rate piece of work', well you don't need the review then, do you?”
We're undecided on this point, and our conversation drifts to the need for reviews to be published overnight in order to bow before the Google gods and their mighty algorithms. “I suppose people may think 'this is the hot news',” he says, “perhaps they want it on the breakfast table the following morning?”By this time, I realise the sun has pretty much set and I should get to the light switch. “Oh it's a hectic world,” says Sam, and I can't really disagree.
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