Since Brexit, touring companies and other artists have struggled with administrative barriers against performing in mainland Europe. Nick Smurthwaite speaks to the founder of White Horse Theatre – an English-speaking theatre company based in Germany – who are suffering from the impact of this political event, and appealing to the government for change.
When teacher-turned-actor Peter Griffith set up the White Horse Theatre company in Somerset in 1978, with three other actors, it was with a view to touring schools in the West Country, which they did for seven years, negotiating the narrow lanes of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset in a decommissioned ambulance.
Knowing that English-speaking drama was popular in Germany, Griffith started accepting some overseas bookings and, by 1985, the demand for White Horse productions from German schools was far greater than it was at home. So, that year he daringly relocated the company – and his family – to Soest near Dusseldorf and went on to become Europe's largest educational touring theatre.
At its peak, White Horse was reaching half a million students annually in schools, theatres and arts centres, with ten companies on the road, mostly across Germany, but also performing as far a field as Japan and China.
Griffith found that German students, eager to learn from the English-speaking plays produced by White Horse, generally made more appreciative and attentive audiences than their British counterparts.
‘You can't get a place in a German university to study anything if you don't speak fluent English,’ says Griffith, who worked as a teacher for five years. ‘That's one of the reasons why the youth of Germany is always keen to master our language.
‘White Horse gives students the chance to experience English as a means of communication rather than a dry classroom exercise. We also make sure that our plays are fun both verbally and visually.’
Griffith himself has been writing or adapting plays for the company since it began. As well as shortened and simplified versions of Shakespeare and some well-known English and American novels, he has tackled contemporary issues such as racism, knife crime, bullying in school, drug abuse and eating disorders.
In more recent years, Brexit has pushed costs up and made it a lot more difficult for actors to get work permits, making it necessary for White Horse to increase their charges.
Coming on top of Brexit, the pandemic hit the company with equal force. ‘Overnight we found that we didn't have an audience, so we had to pay off our actors which pretty much cleared out the budget,’ explains Griffith, speaking from Germany. ‘We're working on new markets, but there is not a lot to be optimistic about.’
Though he continues to write and adapt new shows for the company, Griffith stepped back from a management role last year, handing over the running of the company to his son, Julian.
Has he found it difficult to let go of the company he built from nothing? ‘Yes, of course. It's my baby. Despite the problems with Brexit we are not planning to give up. We shall keep on downsizing so that we can work with the outlets that still want us. We have reduced the number of acting companies from ten to six.'
At present, the company is engaged in a publicity drive aimed at other European markets, and exploring the possibility of targeting a new type of audience. There are no plans to relocate the company base from Soest, where they have a sizeable site with accommodation for 25 actors, plus all their long-serving administrative and technical staff who are based in the area.
The biggest problem for White Horse, as with other English-language theatre companies working or touring on mainland Europe, is the post-Brexit bureaucracy involved in obtaining work permits. Griffith says: ‘British culture, and British theatre in particular, is loved and respected the world over. It brings millions of euros, dollars and yen into Britain, and costs the taxpayer relatively little. Until Keir Starmer comes to his senses, White Horse Theatre, together with dozens of other companies, has to go through the senseless bureaucratic rigmarole that is forced upon us by politicians.
We must obey the law, even though it means we are increasingly having to restrict our performances to wealthier audiences – something that goes against our principle of culture for everyone.'