The Salterton Arts Review 2023 Countdown
It’s time for the Salterton Arts Review’s annual tradition of welcoming in the new year by reflecting on this year’s cultural highlights. It’s the 2023 countdown!
The 2023 Countdown: A Year In Review
Looking back at my post from this time last year, I had urged myself in 2023 not to overdo things by trying to see everything everywhere (all at once?). And to make time for excursions, walks and other activities rather than just keeping up with ephemeral theatre productions and exhibitions.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I did better at one of these aims than the other. Far from slowing down, I think I’ve done more than ever this year. Particularly when it comes to theatre: I get so many interesting invitations that I’ve seen productions by many new companies, and explored venues like the Arcola Theatre, Upstairs at the Gatehouse and Queens Theatre Hornchurch. I’ve been back to favourite festivals like LIMF, GDIF and the Bloomsbury Festival, and tried new ones like Kensington + Chelsea Festival or VAULT Festival. There is just such a lot to do in London.
I did manage to do some excursions out of London this year, but haven’t yet posted them all for your reading pleasure on the blog. On the travel front, I’ve also made return trips to France and Czechia, visited Switzerland, Germany, and Ireland, been as far away as Antigua and India, and have just posted a series on Budapest. Travel is firmly back now, and my urge to explore is as strong as ever.
A Difficult Climate
If I look at the trends of 2023, I think this is the year in which the fallout from the pandemic became more tangible. The funding cuts to many organisations announced by the Arts Council in late 2022 have taken effect this year. Some organisations have reshaped themselves, others have now closed. Cash-strapped local authorities continue to cut funding to venues as important as the Bristol Old Vic. For years now we have been in a political climate which does not support generous arts funding (dare I say the children of the ruling party are not impacted as private schools generally retain good arts programmes). Or certainly not as a public investment. This trend will inevitably continue to bite for some years.
Nonetheless there are many success stories. Institutions like Theatre Peckham lead the way in engaging with and creating for their local communities. Festivals like VAULT may fall foul of central London property prices, but manage to fight their way back for 2024 with a new venue. The human impetus to create and share stories is stronger than financial pressures. But we shouldn’t underestimate the impact this continual struggle can have.
This is perhaps not the most uplifting of end of year messages. What I’m really trying to say is that for lovers of art, theatre and other cultural forms, continuing to support favourite organisations and give new ones a try will be as important as ever in 2024. Both large and small venues alike walk a tightrope at the moment which make every ticket sale or bit of publicity important. So if I continue at my really quite inadvisable rate in 2024, perhaps that’s just me doing my part!
5. A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography – Tate Modern
On now to the countdown itself! In at number five we have photography exhibition A World in Common, seen at Tate Modern. I’ve seen a few things here this year, but A World in Common has been the most memorable. Despite being a broad survey of photography from across the African continent, I found it very well curated. The works are grouped around three themes: Identity and Tradition, Counter Histories, and Imagined Futures. Each theme allows connections and dialogues to develop between artists from different cultures, generations and artistic traditions.
It is also an exhibition which gathers together many artists not (yet?) frequently exhibited in London’s galleries. This isn’t an exhibition of superstars. It’s an exhibition for getting to know who’s who, and who’s creating what, in African photography. There are artists who tackle big subjects, artists who employ humour, artists interrogating the archive, artists crossing genres or taboos or techniques. And all this while keeping to a size which does not feel overwhelming. In summary, it makes the list for being a technically excellent exhibition which is inspiring, challenging, thought-provoking and visually stunning.
If you intended to go and see A World in Common but haven’t yet, you’re in luck! This first entry on the Salterton Arts Review’s 2023 Countdown is still on, until 14 January 2024. Find out more here.
4. Guys & Dolls – Bridge Theatre
Coming up next is this year’s only musical entry, Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre. Last year we had two musical entries: Tony! [The Tony Rock Opera] and Operation Mincemeat (which has had great success in its West End transfer this year). This year I hesitated between Guys & Dolls and the excellent Groundhog Day at the Old Vic. But Guys & Dolls took the spot for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the Bridge does immersive productions very, very well. I sadly never saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream there. But Guys & Dolls takes a similar approach, bringing the audience right into the experience. As my photo above suggests, they do this by having a large part of the audience move around a dynamic set, shepherded by ushers dressed like New York cops. The energy that this immediate feedback between audience and performers brings is unmatched: this is an electric production.
The performances are also uniformly excellent. There are a couple of household names and/or musical theatre stalwarts amongst the cast. But honestly it is more of an ensemble show, requiring everyone coming together to bring to life the magic of this 1950 work by Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows and Cy Feuer.
And guess what? This one is still on, too! It’s currently been extended through to 31 August 2024. Find out more here.
3. Nothing Happens (Twice) – Little Soldier Productions / Jacksons Lane Arts Centre
Sometimes the entries in my annual countdowns aren’t the ones with the five star ratings. Sometimes it’s the ones which worm your way into your brain, coming back to you at odd moments throughout the year. Such is the case with Nothing Happens (Twice), a work by Little Soldier Productions based on Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Nothing Happens (Twice) is what I called at the time a ‘meta-theatrical’ production. It’s the tale of Mercè Ribot and Patrícia Rodríguez living in limbo while they try to negotiate with the Beckett Estate for the rights to perform Waiting for Godot, famously restricted to male actors. This is set against a backdrop of pandemic-related hardship, as the two women perform an Andalusian tourist rap at a mall to make ends meet. They go around in circles, never seeming to make progress and battling the absurdity of their lives. Remind you of anything?
This is such a clever production, and also side-splittingly funny. I will honestly never be able to watch a production of Beckett again without thinking of Ribot and Rodríguez dressed as flamingoes. It works on so many levels. It speaks to some of the difficulties of the life of an artist I was talking about above. And is also a love letter to their partnership, and a funny work of absurdist comedy. Really wonderful stuff, meriting a place at number three on the 2023 countdown.
2. The Architect – Actors Touring Company and Greenwich + Docklands International Festival
Next on the 2023 countdown is another theatrical production which has stayed in my brain for very different reasons. The Architect by Actors Touring Company, which I saw as part of GDIF this year, is utterly unique and deeply moving (literally and figuratively). Created for the 30th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence, The Architect took its audiences on a bus ride through South East London. As we moved past places significant in Lawrence’s story, including the bus stop he and his friend waited at when they were set upon in an ultimately fatal encounter, actors played out scenes from a life very much like his own. Only, on this occasion, the young man who wants to be an architect has the opportunity to grow up and do just that.
I have tears in my eyes again just thinking about it. Actors Touring Company have created something so powerful by focusing on the mundane. Would that Stephen Lawrence had been given the opportunity to be a grown-up professional who should remember to call his mum. It’s a reminder of what was taken from him and his family, and the ongoing worries of those raising Black boys and young men today. The finale, a searing speech by Karl Collins, pleads for a more inclusive and community-minded future.
This is new theatre at its finest. Creative storytelling. A stage and setting unlike any other. Pushing the boundaries of what theatre is and should be.
1. Simon’s Story & Making History: The Ceramic Work Of Simon Pettet – Dennis Severs’ House, London
And now it’s time. The number one spot on the Salterton Arts Review’s 2023 Countdown! The title above has already given it away, it’s a combined artistic and theatrical evening spent at Dennis Severs’ House back in May this year. The artistic part was Making History: the Ceramic Work of Simon Pettet. Pettet was at various times a romantic partner and housemate to Dennis Severs. A talented ceramicist, he was also one of the first people diagnosed with HIV in England, dying at only 28 years of age in 1993.
Making History is a lovingly curated exhibition. Visitors to Dennis Severs’ House will have seen his works, perhaps without realising it. Pettet took great pleasure in borrowing forms from ceramic history but imbuing them with his own twist. The tiles around a fireplace look like Delftware, but contain portraits of local Spitalfields characters including Gilbert and George. Other works blur the lines between fiction and reality, purporting to be possessions of Severs’ invented Jervis family. Many works remain in the hands of the friends he made them for. They have been loaned for the exhibition to give as complete a sense as possible of Pettet’s life and work.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to pair a visit to Making History with Simon’s Story. This is part guided tour, part theatre, written by The Gentle Author and performed by Joel Saxon. Saxon takes the role of Patrick Handscombe, Pettet’s former partner and visitor to Severs’ house. Based on extensive interviews, it transports you back to a different time when the house was a home and living artwork rather than a visitor attraction.
Taken together, they speaks to me of what I’ve loved most about London culture in 2023. A unique experience. An experiment in bringing people together to share stories. A place that speaks to London’s ancient and recent past, crosses genres, tempts the senses and leaves you with indelible memories. May we find many more such sources of inspiration in the coming year.