Strictly Come Dancing keeps performers in work. Top composers use shows like How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? to cast West End productions. And The Play’s The Thing tried to foster new stage voices. But are these pop-culture projects a blessing or blight to the UK arts scene?
Reality TV is often dismissed as half-baked social experiment, or lowbrow entertainment. It is constructed, self-conscious, and rarely convincingly “real”. But there is no denying its popularity or influence.
Shows like Pop Idol and X-Factor take aspiring nobodies, and make them somebodies, however fleetingly. In reality TV’s other primary incarnation, celebrities are pitted against each other, and trained up with new skills, often making light of others hard toil.
Although the proliferation and popularity of these shows is new, their existence is not: 50 years ago the Eurovision Song Contest took a typical eisteddfod format and blew it up for TV. And like it or not, they are here to stay, with new arts spin-offs being produced and replicated the world over.
In London this week, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of The Sound of Music debuts, starring Connie Fisher. Haven’t heard of her? Connie is the winner of BBC 1’s How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Mary Martin first played the role in the 1960 stage production that was made most famous in the 1965 film version by Julie Andrews. After years of searching, so the story goes, Lloyd Webber decided to collaborate with the BBC to find an actress to depict Maria. Reality TV created the star: but to some extent it’s also created the whole show, or demand for it.
There’s no doubt about it: for better or worse, reality TV is creating jobs, and jobs in the arts at that. As BBC1’s website says: “Connie works in Media Sales in a call centre and hates it!” But now her career is centre stage in the West End. And it’s not just the stars: the production staff, hopeful contestants, and aspiring artists are all boosted by this phenomenon.
When How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria was first proposed, actor’s union Equity made their unhappiness clear, claiming that many performers would find it “demeaning” to their profession. Assistant General Secretary Andy Prodger comments on their website that she felt certain “that the majority of Equity members will deplore this method of choosing who gets a role in the West End”. But true to their aims, they stopped complaining, and lobbied for the actors involved, visiting all the open auditions and negotiating with the BBC over pay for finalists who appeared on TV. In the end, Equity’s hard work paid off and their idea of a bursary to train 50 of the best runners-up was accepted.
Strictly Come Dancing is another take on the reality arts scene. As their promotion says: “14 celebrities, 14 professional dancers, one goal”, plus a job for “the legendary entertainer and host” Bruce Forsyth and his charming co-host, Tess Daly, and their “illustrious panel of judges”, a crew of dance coaches, and the station staff. More jobs, more interest in dance, and with the celebrities involved, more cross-promotion.
Generally, the shows revolve around the public voting, and spending money on premium phone lines in the process. So where does this money go? Unfortunately the answer is sometimes into TV mogul’s pockets. However, in a philanthropic twist the BBC have established Fame Academy, and The Fame Academy Bursary, set up with the money raised from voting. Educational bursaries, instruments and equipment awards are given away, and it feeds into the BBC’s New Talent programme, and other schemes like the Writer’s Room.
Channel 4’s series The Play’s the Thing, launched the search for a new British playwright and 2000 hopefuls applied, wanting to make it to a West End stage. Channel 4 are also tying this to their “online repository and marketplace” the ideas factory, which supports 16-34 year olds pursuing careers in the creative industries.
It’s not just limited to the performing arts either: Richard & Judy launched their manuscript competition in 2004, with the winner receiving a publishing contract with Pan Macmillan. More than 46,000 manuscripts were submitted, whittled down to a final four and a winner: Christine Aziz, a 46-year-old freelance journalist and homeopath with her debut novel, The Olive Readers. How to Get Published showcased aspiring authors and their work but also uncovered various aspects of the writing process from research, courses and writing groups to meeting publishers and agents and was supported so lovingly by Pan Macmillan they published all the runners up as well as the winner. With guaranteed publicity, who wouldn’t! Maybe these authors would have eventually published their books without the show, but they certainly wouldn’t have the impressive support and exposure they enjoyed.
In a more highbrow take on the genre, Operatunity, described by the Boston Globe as “polite reality television“, depicted the English National Opera’s search for an untrained singing star who wins the opportunity to star in a single performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto at the London Coliseum. While some critics sceptically dismissed the show’s pretext as a publicity stunt, others were more enthusiastic about what it could do in making opera relevant and bringing it to the masses, and as The Times reported: “The huge success of Channel 4’s Operatunity shows that the appetite for opera is undiminished”.
To a certain extent these shows create a lot of hype, and perhaps oversell the possibilities available in the arts. But on the other hand they certainly show the hardship, grind, blood, sweat and tears that accompanies the glamour. Clearly The Sound of Music will benefit from its TV star story. At least people know it’s on, and will probably turn up in droves to see it. But there’s a postmodern element of watching a show about watching a show: Does the fact that there are so many shows about “reality” mean there are less “real” plays actually being watched, less dancers actually training, less drama being produced for TV, because people are instead making and watching these shows about shows on TV? Or perhaps the cynics will be proved wrong, as the appreciation and demand for the arts in all its forms increases.