Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 19

THE BRITISH COUNCIL AND THE POWER OF THEATRE
international delegates now come to the Unlimited Festival through us—it’s now in
its third edition at the Southbank, having started as part of the Cultural Olympiad
in London in 2012. We are active commissioners and “internationalisers” of the pro-
gramme with our partners, and Carole has seen her own personal connections with
the artists change her. It also leads to policy change and change in attitudes towards
access and inclusivity. Now, we are seeing some of the works being programmed not
even in a disability context, but in mainstream festival programmes. Progress and pow-
er indeed.
Figure 9: Claire Cunnigham and Jess Thom
National Theatre of Scotland (which works without its own home theatre base) and
now director at the world-renowned Royal Court, London’s home for new and radical
writing … Vicky says: “how little theatre has changed since 400BC. There have been so
many challenges to theatre—electricity, television, digital, the challenge of other enter-
tainment, but fundamentally the format hasn’t changed. It serves a basic human need,
both emotional and intellectual. It presents stories either affirming what we are (a kind
of ‘hot water bottle’ comforter) or those that deconstruct what we are (questioning or
disrupting our sense of self). Theatre creates a kind of empathy—we sit as a congrega-
tion digesting a narrative. In today’s secular world, a world of individual entertainment,
with mobile phones, games, the end of family meals and conversation ... in such a world
theatre (like a concert) is one of the few places we come together to share a story and its
impact. We share what someone else is feeling—which is a very sophisticated thing to
do. Theatre bears witness to these experiences, and as a member of the audience, they
will remain with us for ever, and sometimes produce individual and collective transfor-
mation.”
I hope you have found some of my examples convincing and powerful—I hope they
might have changed and broadened your minds to the potential power of theatre, both
emotional and intellectual, to effect change in individuals through a personal transfor-
mation and moment.
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