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Under Labour, the arts were charged with challenging social exclusion, celebrating diversity and reasserting Britishness. But was tthere a contradiction between diversity and national identity? Should theatre foster cohesion or challenge it? If multiculturalism was dead, should theatre be promoting it? Is the theatre's role to encourage tolerance or provoke outrage? 

 

The conference began  with a keynote talk from the RSC’s Michael Boyd on Shakespeare’s Different Histories, leading in to a panel on theatre’s treatment of the past, with playwright Howard Brenton and actor/director Barrie Rutter of Northern Broadsides. Later,  the Arts Council’s Barbara Matthews debated arts policy on diversity and cohesion with commentator Mark Lawson and Conservative Arts spokesman Ed Vaizey. Then playwrights Alia Bano, Kwame Kwei-Armah  and Ashmeed Soyohe joined director Natalie Wilson and academic Lynnette Goddard  to discuss whether theatre still provides a site in which marginalised communities can assert their identity.

 

The second day began with a discussion of the roles required of regional theatres in a multicultural society, with Simon Reade, Lisa O’Neill-Rogan (Bolton Octagon), Jonathan Church (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Stuart Rogers (Birmingham Rep).  Comedian and writer Stewart Lee (Jerry Springer - The Opera) joined playwright Richard Bean, Janet Steel (director of Kali Theatre) and commentators Kenan Malik and David Aaronovitch to debate theatre’s right or duty to offend. The closing session looked at the role of theatre in asserting national identity, north and south of the border, with Richard Eyre (former director of the National Theatre), Vicky Featherstone (current director of the National Theatre of Scotland) and Jude Kelly, chair of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

 

This conference was supported by generous contributions from Royal Holloway University of London, the University of Warwick, and Warwick Arts Centre.