Earlier this year John-Jackson Almond (or JJ as he likes to be called), was appointed as the new Theatre Director of the Assembly Hall Theatre, Royal Tunbridge Wells. His appointment came at an exciting time for the theatre, following a major refurbishment last year and as the Council embarks on a major project to replace the existing theatre.
JJ was the Executive Director of the Park Theatre in London and is also a freelance director and, now that he has firmly settled in behind his new desk I asked him…
What have you found that surprises you so far?
Well, I brought a show here myself, a while ago, a show I was directing called Cissie and Ada: An Hysterical Rectomy, and the show didn’t sell terribly well. I made a wide ranging assumption that it hadn’t sold too well because the show wasn’t particularly well supported by the theatre and so, one of my biggest surprises is, actually, that I was very wrong.
The team here is quite small and the level at which they have to work is really huge. They are so committed to what the theatre is doing, and making sure that all the shows that appear here are well supported. So my experience on the “outside” has been very different from what I found when I started work here. I quickly found out that Basia and the marketing team here are just brilliant.
What can we expect now that you are here, massive changes or subtle differences?
I think it will have to be subtle changes simply because the programme is already pretty much set through until the end of 2017, so my ability to go “Here I am, look at this” is going to be fairly limited. Also, looking into 2018, a lot of the product that will be touring then isn’t ready yet and some of the shows that are ready have already nailed down the venues that they want to go to.
So, I think it will be smaller and quite subtle changes, but one of the main things that I will try to do is to focus on the “populist” element of the programme and by that I mean looking at the shows that have been here and done really well and which we know that there is an audience for, because that will have to be the backbone of the programme.
In that I mean that I expect to have a lot more weekly product coming through, which is quite risky for the venue but I think, to establish and engage that audience we need more of that “top end”, really high quality, product coming through.
West End transfers maybe?
West End transfers, oh yes. When there are tours that are coming out of the West End, we will be waiting for sure. People attach a lot of kudos to it, and they understand the brand of a West End show, so they are much more confident in coming to see it – so there will definitely be a lot more of that type of show here.
But also the general touring product, if it’s of the right profile, will come because I think the audience here in Tunbridge Wells respond very well to good titles and good casting, from what I can see. The best selling show that’s been here recently was Cabaret with Will Young, which came out of Bill Kenwright’s production house, so that gives me a benchmark of the quality of show that the audience respond to very well.
I think the other thing that we will see is that, and I have to be very careful how I phrase this, some of the “tribute band” end of the programme will probably diminish. There are some tribute bands that are of a very high quality, like the Counterfeit Stones and Killer Queen, that the audience responds to really well and love, but there are some other one-nighters that actually don’t work very well here so I think we need to make much clearer decisions about the shows we choose to programme because I think there has been pressure in the past.
An emphasis on quality rather than quantity then?
Yes, there will be a much greater eye on how we curate the programme and what goes into it and, operationally, that is reflected in the fact that we now have a programming meeting, which there never used to be, involving marketing, business management and contracting to make sure that we are accurately forecasting how well each show is likely to do here to make sure that we can afford to put the programme on and that we are clear about our audience.
I think there is also an element, and I’m not sure how to do it, of educating the public as well because most of them have no idea how a theatre works and how it is programmed, which is totally understandable as they don’t really have any interest it that.
For example, ATG (Ambassador Theatre Group) offered me a show recently but the guarantee on it was between 80 and 90 thousand pounds for the week and, of course, the public don’t understand that a guarantee like that means, if the show doesn’t sell, we have to make up the difference. They understand our desire to put on shows like that, but not the risk levels that are attached to doing so.
So how do you programme a season?
The first thing that I have to remember is that it’s not about me, and what I want. My skills are about curating the programme and making sure that I make the best decisions for the Tunbridge Wells audience. So my first step is the data crunching and the analysis, working together with the marketing team, to make sure that we are really clear on who our customers are, and what they like.
My example of Cabaret is a show that did really brilliantly, amazing well, and that is just the type of product that I would like to have here all the time, if it’s available. So then it’s about going out and finding the shows and making sure that I have those relationships with Bill Kenwright, with ATG and with David Ian in place so that they always think of us when they are touring the big shows.
Then it’s also about sifting through the product that we get offered. We get offers of shows daily, so each week when we have our programming meeting an a Tuesday we have probably got about 20 different shows to look at. Some of them are weekly product and some of them are one-nighters.
We have to make sure that we give our audience the shows that they want to see, and that’s where that populist element comes in, and, after that, once we have a good backbone to the programme we can start thinking about how we develop the audience and how we can put product in that may not sell well, and may not cover it’s cost. That’s what we use our subsidy for, to put on shows for the areas of the community that are not going to come to the populist stuff.
Are you going to engage with your audience to get them to help you with that?
Yes, absolutely. One of the things that we have already started is that, after people have visited the theatre, a survey goes out to ask them about their experience, the facilities, how they got in touch with the theatre, how easy they found it and questions about the bar service. It’s quite a short survey but it covers quite a lot of information to help us engage a bit more, and we welcome their comments.
As well as that, we are looking at the things we can do that are not focussed on the stage but are focussed outside the building. There is a huge amount of work going on in the area with young people, like Art31 which is a scheme that enables young people to form their own organisation and to engage in artistic activities that they control. I think we have a responsibility to participate in that in some way, shape or form.
If the programme is already set, can you reveal what is in store for 2017?
Of course, I would be happy to. We have just released our new season brochure and in there you’ll see that we have The Mousetrap here in November and then Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with the fabulous Su Pollard, takes us over Christmas and into 2017.
Then some of next years highlights include the 20th Anniversary production of Rent, that’s here in May, David Walliams brilliant book Gangsta Granny comes to life here in June, Jodie Prenger, who was here with Calamity Jane and Tell Me on a Sunday, is back here in July with Willy Russell’s amazing play Shirley Valentine and then, in September 2017 we have The Wedding Singer, a musical based on the film, with Ruth Madoc, Roxanne Pallett and Ray Quinn.
The full programme of events appearing at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells can be found on the theatre website at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk or, for more information and to book tickets, call the box office on 01892 530613.