Making Shoes: Working-Class Artists and the Ideological Imaginary of Cultural Deficit in the UK Theatrical Landscape

Cette conférence est organisée dans le cadre du projet « Écouter le terrain : Pratiques chorégraphiques en partage » (accord cadre CNRS/Ministère de la Culture) et du « Performance Lab ».

The democratisation of arts activity and redistribution of arts funding have been key priorities in Arts Council England’s strategic vision over recent years, with the intended aim of increasing access to, and participation in, the arts to those from geographical areas that have historically been under-resourced both economically and culturally. While this is to be welcomed, the democratisation of access is not always matched by a democratisation of agency, or any change in who retains the reigns of the cultural narrative. 

This conference draws on recent AHRC-funded research into representations of working-class subjects in UK theatre practice and policy. It examines the ideological imaginary of “cultural deficit” and the ways in which working-class artists may be reduced to the cultural value of their lived experience rather than recognised for their artistic expertise. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s figure of the shoemaker, the conference examines different approaches to what might be termed theatres of real people, autobiographical or autofictional performance, and processes of community participation, in order to investigate the tensions between the democratisation of access to the arts and the democratisation of artistic agency.

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Liz Tomlin is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow. Her publications include Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory (2013) and Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change (2019). She has recently focused on class analysis of theatre leading an AHRC Research Network on class discrimination in the British theatre industry (2018–2019) and holding an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship (2022–2024) (Figurations of working-class subjects in UK theatre practice and policy). Open access publications resulting from this work include a co-edited special issue, Artist Development: Access, Diversity, Exclusion (Studies in Theatre and Performance, 40:3, 2020) and Staging Class Conflict in the UK (2025). She formerly directed theatre productions with communities and schools in South Yorkshire, UK (1995–2010), and was playwright and co-director with Point Blank Theatre (1999–2009), with selected playtexts published in Point Blank: Performance Texts and Critical Essays (2007).