Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Funding, product placement and drunkenness in Punchdrunk's The Black Diamond

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1386/stap.32.2.193_1

2040-0616

Adam Alston,

Cinema and Media Studies

This article responds to Stella Artois Black's recent hiring of Punchdrunk members for their 'immersive' theatre marketing venture The Black Diamond (Scene 1).What happens to immersive theatre when product placement enters its world?And what happens to the product having entered the world of immersive theatre?These questions are addressed in relation to Arts Council England funding policy and Punchdrunk's award of a significant rise in ACE funding.Balancing ACE's framework for 'sustainable' art against the threat of 'selling out' to commercial interests, a critical approach is proposed that addresses how audiences might assume partial responsibility for recognising and responding to the control of art production at the institutional level.With tongue only half in cheek, drunkenness is explored in relation to product placement as a means to this end.Responding to current cuts in public spending in the United Kingdom, Arts Council England are encouraging art makers and companies to source mixed economic finance from both public and private sources (ACE 2010: 7).ACE's chief executive, Alan Davey, even describes this encouragement as 'vital' for the continuation of a 'golden age' of artistic 'excellence' (ACE 2010: 7).Corporate sponsorship and private philanthropy have been tied into theatre funding for quite some time, but the privatisation of theatre finance and innovative theatre business models seem likely to become increasingly prevalent in the wake of recent ACE policy and the tightening of public purse strings by Her Majesty's Treasury.This article responds to privatisation and business innovation in theatre finance by addressing the relationship of a theatre company to its financial sources and asking what implications such shifts in theatre finance might have on producing and, significantly, receiving theatre today.The British theatre company Punchdrunk were formed in 2000 and have since come to enjoy international acclaim as pioneers of so-called 'immersive theatre'; this is a