British Theatre Repertoire Reports
The British Theatre Repertoire Reports are a unique series of studies of UK theatre, which for the first time show the proportions and performance of different forms of theatre across the country, based on box office data from theatres themselves.
The research method is for expert taggers to go through the titles of UK theatre shows, categorising them by theatre form (drama, musicals, opera, pantomime, Christmas shows and physical theatre), era (classic, modern, postwar and new work), form (adaptations, translations, versions, work for children) and authorship (new writing, devised work and gender of writer).
Thus categorised, the resultant showlist is linked electronically to box office data, anonymised and aggregated, and then analysed. The result has been a series of reports which paint a uniquely authoritative picture of UK theatre: answering questions about the performance of certain forms of work in UK regions and nations; the proportion and performance of musicals, adaptations and revivals, the proportion of new and old work written by women, and the amount of new work as opposed to revivals.
On the last, the most significant discovery of the first report (2013) was that – contrary to presumptions within the industry – new work and new writing had overtaken revivals in terms of productions, performances, attendances and box office, for the first time since records began.
The third report, a study of theatre before and after Covid, showed that the proportion of new plays in the repertoire had declined, but their box office performance had increased.
Written principally by researchers David Edgar and Dan Rebellato, the reports into 2013, 2014 and 2019-2023 were undertaken and published by the British Theatre Consortium, which organised conferences, undertook research and produced reports between 2007 and 2026. Future reports will be produced and published independently.
Background to the repertoire reports
Following two reports on English Theatre in 2000, the Arts Council injected an additional £25m into the regional theatre, to cover a five year period from 2003. At that end of that period, ACE invited tenders for two reports on the effect of that boost in expenditure. The British Theatre Consortium made a bid to research and write a report on the impact of the boost on new writing.
Titled Writ Large: New Writing on the English Stage 2003-2009, the report was published in July 2009. In addition to in-depth interviews, the core of the report was a questionnaire sent to 89 subsidized, building-based theatre companies, 65 of whom replied. The most significant result from the data was that just under half (47%) of the repertoire of our reporting theatres was new writing. This was a dramatic increase in the proportion of new plays in the repertoire, as was the box office performance of new writing during the 2003-8 period.
At a time when it was assumed that the individually-written new play was in decline, Writ Large made a significant impact on policy.
The report’s recommendations included the reinstatement of new writing as an Arts Council priority, and the undertaking of further research into the repertoire in the future.
Writ Large is assessable HERE.