Theatre streaming services and cinema screenings of stage performances are not a threat to “in-person” attendance and are making audiences more adventurous, according to new research commissioned by the National Theatre.
Introducing the findings on Monday, the NT’s director, Indhu Rubasingham, said that the boom in filmed theatre had raised major questions including the concern that popular initiatives such as NT Live and NT at Home would have a negative impact on live attendance. The organisation commissioned research by the agency Indigo to learn more about audiences’ attitudes to filmed theatre.
When asked about the specific benefits of watching theatre at home, the second most popular response to Indigo’s survey was “I can discover new performances I hadn’t considered before”. The most appealing benefit was “I can watch at my own convenience” – including the ability to pause a performance and return to it later. Other popular benefits were the ability to rewatch a show that the viewer had already enjoyed live in the theatre and the chance to watch more performances than you could manage in person.
Respondents highlighted that watching at home “is a lower risk way to try something new” and that financial pressure was a key reason that they attended in-person theatre less often than they would like. Indigo’s report states that “there is very little evidence that filmed theatre reduces in-person attendance of theatre overall” and that 93% of survey respondents who saw at least one filmed theatre production in the cinema or via streaming also attended a performance in person.
Kerry Radden, associate director at Indigo, said: “Our sector has been worrying about what filmed theatre means since the pandemic threw a spotlight on it. What our research discovered is that filmed theatre has the potential to grow audiences rather than being a threat to the live experience. The vast majority of people watching are also committed, frequent theatregoers.”
As part of the research, an online audience survey ran for 11 days and gathered roughly 5,500 responses from people based in the UK. The research revealed what Indigo call a hierarchy of choice in how to watch theatre, with in-person performance remaining the clear preference at 89%. The report states that “filmed theatre skews younger than in-person – streaming markedly so, with over half of under-35s streaming theatre in the last 12 months”. Streaming was also shown to increase access, as 20% of those who watch filmed theatre at home are disabled compared with 15% of in-person audiences.
Matt Risley, chief digital officer at the National Theatre, said: “Filmed theatre should never be framed as replacing the magic of a live performance; it’s a complementary offer that can lower barriers, support discovery and keep people connected to theatre over time.”
In a panel discussion at the National Theatre, Tom Powis, executive director of the production company Wessex Grove, said that filmed theatre serves to “boost” the life of productions, which have a “short, finite” run in the theatre. Powis said that the film version of the West End hit Vanya, starring Andrew Scott, had been conceived by the play’s director Sam Yates as “its own artistic piece”. Director Justin Martin, whose productions of Suzie Miller’s legal dramas Prima Facie and Inter Alia both became NT Live hits, agreed that filmed theatre was becoming increasingly sophisticated and that “the more you do it the more you learn the potential of it”. He likened the closeups in the film version of Inter Alia to his own “rehearsal room experience” on the production, “being right there with an actor”.
Martin said that, when one of his productions is filmed and edited for the screen, “you can control rhythm in a different way” and the main bonus “is getting into closeup” so that audiences can see the detail of a performance. When he watched the film of Inter Alia, he said, “I had forgotten the nuance of what Rosamund [Pike, the lead actor] was doing.” Martin said future filmed theatre productions “have to be savvier” and use “more cameras, different angles” to push the new art form further.
Prima Facie has been watched by around 1.5 million people in cinemas since it was first released in 2022. Inter Alia was broadcast live to 50,000 people across the UK, and to date has been seen by more than 450,000 people in cinemas worldwide via NT Live – more than seven times the total in-person audience it reached during its run at the National. It is currently on in the West End and will transfer to Broadway later this year.
After the success of Prima Facie and Inter Alia, Martin and Miller are planning a third play to round off a legal trilogy, resulting in a streamable trilogy of films that would be “an experience you can’t have in the theatre, like a box set”, said Martin.
Rubasingham said that NT at Home and NT Live “aren’t side projects for us”. The initiatives are “part of us meeting audiences where they are” she added, and a way to “extend the life and reach of our performances”.