Cutting the Tightrope: British Theatre and Palestine

In this contribution, I address the response of British theatre makers and institutions to the Israeli assault on Gaza, and the ongoing genocide, since October 2023. To begin, I outline two moments from early 2024 that are symptomatic of the structural conditions and contradictions currently facing British theatre makers and institutions. Taken together, these illustrate the intensification of cultural workers’ organizing in support of Palestine and, at the same time, the expanding reach of censorship within the cultural sector. I argue that these developments mirror the wider authoritarian turn in Britain since 2023 and signal a growing recognition of the need to develop work that re-evaluates existing reliance on state backed arts funding. I turn to ‘Cutting the Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics from Art’, staged at the Arcola Theatre in London, as a key example of these claims.