Live entertainment, fairgrounds, penny arcades and beach huts!

Live entertainment: a comment on its role in coastal regeneration

This brief chapter on live entertainment at the seaside provides a context in which to begin to consider its role in coastal regeneration. Live entertainment is not only suggested as an important ingredient in the mix of cultural activities but, at many seaside locations, it is proposed as an essential part of the critical mass required for basic sustainability of the town, let alone its potential role in regeneration. Perhaps controversially, ‘basic sustainability’ might be more to do with the preservation of any cultural norms that live entertainment represents, as opposed to any economic imperative.

Background data and research confirms that, during the first decade of the twenty-first century, live entertainment continues to be a ‘given’ in the ‘mosaic’ of the cultural offer at many seaside locations.¹ It has been changing over the years and become less focused on traditional seaside entertainment such as variety shows and is now, in many resorts, a somewhat eclectic mix of mostly ‘low’ but some ‘high’ (performing) arts that caters for tourists – including long-stay, short-stay and day-trippers but often, increasingly, for residents and patrons within a 45-minute drive time.² Apart from the changing specifics of the live entertainment programmes (which do not materially affect the actual continuation of the live entertainment offer), consideration also needs to be given to the key issues of the ownership, management, control, and preservation of the theatres where live entertainment is performed. This issue is linked to the changing patterns and tastes of patrons but broadens the debate by taking into account the significance of the built structures that provide the live entertainment spaces.

Clearly, there has been a decline in staying visitors at the English seaside that has led to a consequent prioritisation of capital spend for seaside buildings by local councils and others. So, should a theatre be maintained if its original rationale/function – for staying visitors (tourists) – is reduced? During the last 15 years or more, certain councils have allowed the private sector to manage a number of seaside theatres. Not necessarily as a consequence of this, but certainly out of economic necessity (not enough funding for all the seaside buildings that might be considered worthy of preservation), this has led to many theatres being under threat of demolition or mothballing – although some, such as Cromer Pier, have been refurbished as public/private initiatives.

Perhaps too often, theatres have been considered a ‘given’. It may be the case that councillors and the private companies involved simply believe the opening statements of this brief resume – live entertainment is a cultural norm at the seaside and must be provided albeit in changing formats and, perhaps, in a variety of locations within the resort.

Rather like swimming pools in hotels, these theatres are something visitors and residents alike expect but may not always patronise. Economic necessity and social and cultural change, along with local and national political imperatives, suggests a need to firmly establish the future role for seaside theatres. From an architectural point of view, owing to their construction and development during the ‘hey-day’ of English seaside holidays, where councils and private investors competed to out-do other resorts, many of England’s seaside theatres are fine examples of their genre, superb examples of the Victorian and Edwardian drive towards architectural ‘extravagance’. However, many years’ exposure to the elements, shifts in the patterns and patronage of audiences, and in councils’ and owners’ priorities, has meant many of these theatres are in a poor state of repair. Clearly, there is particular architectural merit to be considered – a ‘heritage’ role. Additionally, crucially, close consideration must be given to the role these buildings (and the content performed in them) will play in the economic, social, but particularly cultural, and sometimes political context, of England’s seaside locations during the early part of this century.

There has been no significant research to establish the contemporary relative significance of seaside theatres and identify those ‘at risk’ – both as physical structures but also as no longer fully performing their original or adapted tasks. A cultural capital taxonomy – that would include in any such list the categorising of seaside theatres and the performances in them – is needed in order to assist planners and strategists in decisions regarding the future use and preservation of these examples of England’s seaside heritage. Any such taxonomy needs to take on the contentious issue concerning how far seaside live entertainment is art/culture, and thus how far it might be included in regeneration initiatives noted for their cultural content – be they culture-led regeneration, cultural regeneration, or culture and regeneration.³

Certainly, a (new) morphology of cultural capital at English resorts may be usefully postulated, and may be emerging, as seaside live entertainment changes to sit somewhere between the exclusive entertainments provided at the early spa resorts, the traditional live entertainment provided during the period of mass tourism, and the live entertainment provided during the subsequent decline of the traditional visiting tourists. Significantly, these trends may also be part of a broader shift that is seeing some seaside resorts being transformed into ‘towns by the sea’. These shifts need to accommodate an emerging description and perhaps a prioritisation of aspects of the cultural capital (yet to be agreed) that might be acquired by people patronising live entertainment performances at seaside resorts. There is a need to establish a much firmer foundation in relation to any theoretical and practical acceptance of a cultural capital taxonomy as applied to English seaside resorts and the live entertainment therein. This may lead to certain resorts acquiring a particular, and possibly unique, widely understood level of cultural standing/capital – including the position of (the town’s) live entertainment in all of this. In turn, this branding/marketing (cultural) perspective might then be more closely incorporated into any regeneration initiatives that suggest cultural activities are either fundamental, or tangential via any of the three (Dryburgh) regeneration models, mentioned above.