Sunak’s sabre-rattling is pure cynicism – Black Out nights are a small, vital corrective to theatre’s lack of diversity

Joaquina Kalukango and Paul Alexander Nolan during a performance of Slave Play. The show will transfer to London’s West End in June. Photograph: Matthew Murphy/AP

Downing Street made a surprise announcement last week. No, not the one about our streets being overrun with the scourge of peaceful protest, but a strongly worded statement on the importance of inclusivity in theatre. “The prime minister is a big supporter of the arts,” said Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson, and he believes they should be “inclusive and open to everyone”.

At last, the stage industry might have thought. A prime minister who is ready to tackle the many inequities that stand in the way of access to theatre, albeit rather late in the day, given how loudly the industry has been shouting about this in past years.

But no, Sunak’s version of inclusivity is something quite apart. His spokesperson was criticising an initiative called Black Out, which invites audience members identifying as Black to some performances of the West End show Slave Play, starring Kit Harington and Olivia Washington. The show, which transfers to the Noël Coward theatre from Broadway in June, is written by Jeremy O Harris, who conceived the scheme, and which here applies to two nights out of almost 100.

Downing Street has criticised this for being “wrong and divisive”. The irony could not be more clanging. Theatre audiences are overwhelmingly old, white and wealthy. Arts Council England’s findings in its 2022 diversity report for the previous year found just 7% of audiences were Black, Asian, ethnically mixed or other, which means 93% were white, a figure that is significantly out of kilter with population ratios. Artistic directors have been wringing their hands about this, trying to get diverse audiences through their doors, not only for ideological purposes but for their business model.

To give over two nights to this in a 12-week run is to encourage a demographic that, often, does not feel welcome in such a space. The producers of Slave Play have said they want to “increase accessibility to theatre for everyone” and that no one will be prevented from attending any of the performances. In other words, it is all about inclusivity.

Black Out nights are not new. They have run in New York and Boston since 2019, and in London too, with Daddy at the Almeida theatre, and Tambo & Bones at Theatre Royal Stratford East. The criticism is toothless sabre-rattling anyway, and seems ill-informed. Sunak’s spokesperson spoke against such nights “particularly” for venues that receive public funding and said the PM’s office was seeking “further information”. When it does so, it will discover the theatre under fire takes no public money. It is, like all West End venues, a commercial theatre that raises 100% of its investment.

If the PM wants to take West End producers to task, how about expressing outrage at ticket prices, which turn some shows into de facto “millionaire-out” nights. Who else can afford a “package” ticket for £395 for shows such as Plaza Suite? More widely, the theatre industry has been trying to gain the attention of politicians for some time to discuss denuded public subsidy funding for the arts; last month, for instance, public funding was cut by 100% at the Birmingham Rep. An announcement on this would be welcome, by such a high-profile “supporter of the arts”.

There are less cynical arguments against the Black Out scheme. Some have called it condescending. And just as there are critics of Black History Month, so some say two nights are not going to fix racial inequality in the theatre or beyond. But this is not a positive action scheme – it is an attempt to bring a group of people together, in affinity, as an acknowledgment, of sorts.

Others might suggest that creating silos in theatre is the diametric opposite of what drama is supposed to do: generate empathy and foster connections and conversations. But Black Out is hardly preaching segregation. When some shows have involved audiences in the issue of race, it has become more confrontational, arguably more divisive, such as in the case of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play, Fairview, which transferred to the Young Vic in London, from New York. In its conclusion, white audience members were invited on to the stage so they could feel the “objectification” that people of colour routinely undergo, while the rest of us remained in our seats. Some found this incredibly arresting. I felt it binary in its presumption that we are all either Black or white. What about my mixed heritage nieces who pass as white? And those of Jewish descent who experience prejudice even if they appear to be white.

Black Out nights do not set up a confrontation in this way. Nor are they as categorical as the case in which an Indigenous playwright, Yolanda Bonnell, requested that only critics of colour review her show in Canada in 2020. Still, note the word “requested”. It was not a blanket ban. No one is victimising white people here.

The Black Out site says that these nights are for those who want to convene to watch theatre “free from the white gaze”. Now that we all know what this means, having acknowledged systemic racism in the world and within arts institutions after George Floyd’s murder, shouldn’t we be showing the conviction of our hashtags and black squares to welcome this tiny corrective gesture? The labelling of Black Out as a ban is tantamount to the “White Lives Matter” hysteria in the face of BLM activism. It should be dismissed for what it is, not taken on as a disingenuous campaign for inclusivity.

But if the government really does see this dedicated scheme as divisive, surely other audience-specific spaces are guilty of the same offence, such as schools performances and parent and baby shows? Shouldn’t No 10 also crack down on women’s sessions at the local swimming pool – for “banning” men? Black Out does not expressly exclude other groups from attending, anyway. The site clearly states no one will be turned away. No doubt the prime minister would be welcome to go along (on 17 July and 17 September).

Arifa Akbar is the Guardian’s chief theatre critic

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