To market or not to market

Just found a nice little blog by a London director. Today he's commenting on a hand-wringing article in the Guardian about problems of theatre in London, and he says this:

"For my own part, I think that the current New Labour orthodoxy encourages too many hand-wringing articles and conferences, too much talk of dramaturgy and stakeholders, and not enough rigour in the art itself. We are too soft on ourselves. There's not enough crisp, incisive, felt, thought-through, free, spirited, serious, playful work going on. We have the writers to do it but not the directors - that's the problem. When it should have punch, wit and verve, too often our work is silly, suburban and over-priced. There is a greater and greater gap between the laboured, otiose world of subsidised work and the shabby, preposterous vulgarity of the £55-a-ticket commercial world. The work of too many directors is intellectually weak and emotionally insipid; lazy, vain and crass. This has nothing to do with the differing strands of work around - physical, visual, new plays, revivals, devised work or musicals, they all fall victim to the same etiolation."

I've reproduced it here as I think it's spot on and couldn't hope to comment on it and add to it.