May I, as a fellow actor and admirer of Derek Jacobi, add a word to his valued concerns (“Today’s actors have lost art of vocal technique, says Jacobi”, News)? Here in Britain, we have had, for four centuries, the greatest of creativity in drama and theatre performance since the days of Aristophanes and Sophocles in ancient Athens. Since few politicians have a clue about this – more than 80% of professional performers being unemployed through lack of performance space – and most people are deprived of the opportunities to see live works by anyone from Shakespeare to aspiring young dramatists today, should we not now ensure that the theatre has a place in each and every community, akin to the free lending libraries and the parks? Every town and city should have its own repertory theatre, playing classics and local work by young and older people, with residential companies working hand in hand with schools and other institutions. As Laurence Olivier said in his maiden speech in the House of Lords: “I believe in the theatre… as the first glamouriser of thought.”
Who would pay for all this? The thousands who would flock to Great Britain, the world’s drama centre, from all parts of the globe, as many do already.
Ian Flintoff
Oxford
