Under attack from the unemployables and activists again.
Sadler’s Wells Theatre has just been attacked in the press by the usual suspects (deadbeats, unemployable middle class youth, washed-up actors and miscellaneous activists) for accepting sponsorship from Barclays, which funds a subsidised £10 ticket scheme for young people.
Where have these cretins been for the past 18 months?
Even before COVID, theatres were dying a death.
In case these gold-medal winning halfwits hadn’t noticed, generous sponsorship deals are thin on the ground, so telling the theatre to look elsewhere is quite simply moronic.
Many of the companies they are ‘calling out’ are already attempting to mend their ways and alter the way they do business, but nothing is fast enough for these snowflakes and their temper tantrums.
So much of this is monstrous, childish, attention-seeking behaviour anyway. The desperate desire to seem relevant. Demonstrating you are ‘passionate’ in order to get laid, never mind the actual cause and it’s merits, which in truth, for most of them, is neither here nor there. Could be anything. Dressing up and stamping your hoof is the thing (not the play!).
This petulant action is more likely to kick the theatrical industry when it is down - unsportsmanlike - and in their case self-defeating, actors complicit in the destruction of their own industry, can you believe it? Of course you can. They do it all the time.
And what of youth? Of the minority who regularly attend the theatre they like the affordable tickets and this encourages future theatre-goers.
The very few who would rather stamp their feet and wet the bed can boycott the theatre if they choose; There aren’t enough of them to make any commercial difference, and they probably wouldn’t go to the theatre anyway. Not only politically illiterate!
I would urge Sadler’s Wells to hold firm and not give in to this mindless blackmail. They’ll get bored and attack something else if you just wait them out.
If you give in, they will sense blood in the water and you’ll never hear the end of it. Besides, this is NOT the will of the majority, merely a troupe of over-excitables looking for an easy victory - if their attack makes no headway then their ineffectiveness becomes glaringly apparent to all.
Which would be a good thing.