A new site-specific theatre production based on interviews with leading figures in the newspaper industry in the UK. Read more …
The once respected, massively influential and lucrative newspaper industry is in crisis. Rocked by ongoing allegations of corruption, bribery and illegal practices, the media has become the story.
Behind the headlines, newspapers circulation figures continue to spiral downward, with the knock-on effect of ever-decreasing advertising revenue and redundancy now commonplace across all levels of the industry. At the same time, the explosion of digital media and the possibility and expectation of instant, free news 24 hours a day has completely wrong-footed the industry and left it reeling.
No-one would argue that the revelations and reverberations of the past five years have been anything less than extraordinary, but the question no-one can answer is whether there will even be a newspaper industry in another five years.
Blending fact, anecdote and passionate opinion, Enquirer is a site-specific piece of theatre performed in an empty media office block in Glasgow. This promenade production has been created as a rapid response to the unfolding events of recent months in the newspaper industry. The show will be updated throughout the rehearsal and performance period to reflect the current state of play.
Documentary theatre at its devastating best. And that's on the record.
Shocking...the performances are all excellent.
This is a telling, intelligent and constructively self-referential piece of theatre, brilliantly directed by Featherstone and Tiffany. It’s not Black Watch, but it chimes in the same manner.
The result is a yearning sense of an unruly yet sometimes lovable beast, threatened less by Leveson than by the internet. The mood of Enquirer is one of regret rather than indignation, a plangent evocation of the end of an era.
Stylishly presented, elegantly performed.
A persuasive and provocative piece of theatre.
The seeds of a fine docudrama are here, and Enquirer has balance, criticising the industry and celebrating good journalists. It needs to be restructured and expanded, though, before its London transfer in the autumn.
The show itself swarms with contradictory life.
Draws a magnificent ensemble performance from a cast who seem completely seized by the paradox of journalism, by its nobility, its grubbiness, and the extent to which it finds itself under ethical attack at its moment of greatest economic weakness.
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Media in the spotlight: National Theatre of Scotland takes on the press with Enquirer
Hack Watch: The play uncovering the crisis facing the newspaper industry
Journalism is in crisis, and the best and worst of it is about to be laid bare
NTS tackles phone-hacking with Enquirer
A natural Enquirer
if the media is in crisis then so is theatre, and Enquirer is a case in point
A drama out of Press crisis
The Hub at Pacific Quay, Glasgow from Thursday April 26, 2012, until Saturday May 12, 2012.
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