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

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 ».

This paper will draw on my recent AHRC fellowship, exploring figurations of working-class subjects in UK theatre practice and policy. 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. 

In this paper I will trace three different manifestations of what I have termed the ideological imaginary of cultural deficit: the – sometimes – unconscious stigmatization of theatre artists self-defined, demographically categorized or otherwise-recognised as being of working-class origin.

Rather than focusing on the right-wing stigmatization of the poor, an increasingly common target of contemporary theatre that locates class conflict as its theme, this paper will focus on the ways in which the mostly left-leaning/liberal industry of theatre and policy makers risk re-directing – sometimes unknowingly – the very same ideological imaginary of cultural deficit. Indeed, those who are themselves of working-class origin are not immune from the self-destructive power of this imaginary.

I borrow the figure of the shoemaker from philosopher Jacques Ranciere, to illustrate how arts policy and theatre practice is too often drawn into the trap of reducing the cultural potential of the working-class artist to the ability to write or stage their authentic autobiography, rather than permitting them the artistic expertise to make whatever kind of work they want. Like Ranciere’s shoemaker, restricted by the history of philosophy to only making shoes in order to leave the space for art and contemplation to the philosophers, the working-class artist risks being valued only for one thing: their working-class lived experience, leaving the space for all other models of performance for artists from more privileged backgrounds to occupy.

To this end I will examine differing approaches to what might be termed theatres of real people, autobiographical, or autofictional, performance and processes of community participation. The keynote will explore how working-class theatre artists can be located in each model as a shoemaker whose only value is the cultural and social capital of their classed lived-experience, rather than their skills as an artist. I will also examine models of these practices which highlight this risk and undertake strategies to counter the ideological imaginary of cultural deficit in their work. 

In conclusion, I will note how the ideological severance of the ‘art’ from the ‘working-class artist’ is now becoming endemic in public arts policy in the UK, holding great risk to both the diversity and quality of theatre practice in the future, and to the potential for those from working-class backgrounds to become artists in the first place.

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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).