Kevin Spacey hits out at the BBC

Hollywood actor turned Old Vic theatre artistic director, Kevin Spacey has accused the BBC of what he calls, “crossing the line” by heavy promotion of West End musicals, while ignoring regular theatre productions.

He claims that the corporation’s emphasis on musical show’s such as Any Dream Will Do and I’d Do Anything, are nothing more than advertising for musicals. In an interview broadcast on Radio 4 the actor said, “You are not a commercial broadcaster, and I thought that was crossing the line. Where’s our 13-week programme? I have spoken to your chairman but he has yet to get back to me.”

Series such as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, involve searching the country for potential stars for Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

The Beeb’s, I’d Do Anything, attempted to locate actors to play Nancy and Oliver in Oliver Twist. The winning actors will then star with funny man Rowan Atkinson, who is set to play Fagin.

Spacey said that the BBC’s screening of series aimed at helping children to raise their self-esteem was in its self commendable, but also added: “These are interesting ideas, now they’re not sexy so maybe they don’t want to put them on air.”

The BBC stated that its series, are not “unduly promotional” and that it did not seek commercial interest in the shows for which auditions were held.

Mr Spacey’s opinions are backed by artistic director, Nicholas Kent, of the Tricycle Theatre in North London, who also attacked the ‘dumbing down’ of TV.

“Undoubtedly, these programmes do have a big effect on the box office - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria had a huge effect on the box office, for example,” he stated that. “There is a contention that they are all Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, or he is connected with them”.

“I would never be against getting bigger audiences for theatre, but it seems to be the big musicals that have benefitted from this, and it does not represent the theatre in general, in any way.”

In an unbridled swipe at programme quality, he said: “There appears to be a nod at the theatre going on, but effectively this type of programme is just an X-Factor in the theatre. It makes no cultural contribution at all. It’s not just the BBC and Channel 4 - everyone is going downmarket with reality TV.”

Monty Python spin-off Spamalot, last year took out a contract with Swedish channel TV3, to locate an actress to play the part of the Lady of the Lake.

Since the actress, Nina Soderquist started performing at the Palace Theatre; ticket sales for Spamalot have gone from 10th to 1st among Swedish tourists coming to London.

“TV has fallen in love with this format at the moment, so it’s up for grabs. It’s the reality of the modern world, and it is fair game for us to look at ways of taking advantage of it,” says Crispin Ollington, who set up the TV tie-in for Spamalot

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