Lhtheatre

It’s getting easier and easier to find and watch films online for free, either through streaming sites or through downloads. However, trying to find a quality online version of most films, especially recent releases, is nearly impossible.

This is because the best online versions of films come from DVD-Rips, and if a film has only just hit cinemas, it’s not hard to see why the first offerings will be of very poor quality.

There is a lot of debate over watching films online. One argument is that it is immoral and steals from the companies who make film, not just from big studio moguls but right down to the props manufacturers and labourers. Of course, downloading and streaming films is illegal, but it is one of those cases where actually finding out who has done it and punishing them is a Herculean task. The other option is for production companies to find ways to ‘pirate-proof’ their product, and this is possibly the most logical way forward.

But the downloading plague does bring up an interesting question about modern cinema audiences: if films are so widely available, and cinemas are notorious for making their money on food and drink rather than ticket prices, why do people still go to the cinema? Is the cinema experience worth paying not only a lot for, but choosing it over not having to pay at all? Or are there still a few people who refuse to delude themselves with the notion that they deserve to have something for free, no matter who ends up paying it?

The entertainment industry is one of the hardest to break into, and one of the most notoriously fickle-minded and forgetful for those already in it. But it is easy to see why. Audiences are relatively unforgiving, quick to criticise and sparing in praise. Perhaps the reason for this is that audiences want many different things from their productions, be they film, television, theatre, music or what have you. This isn’t to say that some people like one and not the others—although this is undoubtedly true in a few cases. More, that the audiences to each type of entertainment show want and expect different things from the show; and essentially find different things entertaining.

While some want charm and good-looks in their leading man or lady, others may criticise good-looks as a smokescreen for a lack of talent—whether or not this is true! And while some might find, say, a psychological examination of a small section of society on one London Street intensely moving and gripping, others may want to see something that doesn’t even pretend to be real life.

Perhaps it is this desire to please everybody that results in an interesting dichotomy between productions trying to please everybody, and larger organisations incorporating different kinds of entertainment to provide something for everybody and allowing some element of choice. Either way, the difficulty of entry more or less provides substance and quality in most, if not all, entertainment forms.

The theatre is often seen as an exclusive form of entertainment, perhaps because of its association with more high-brow productions, with much of the general low-brow entertainment seen to be provided by film and television. However, not only was this not always the case (the bawdiest entertainments of Georgian England were found at the playhouses) but it is arguably still not. Pantomime is still a popular and vibrant theatre form, and technically, the routine of most stand-up comedians takes the form of a dramatic monologue, albeit it more Puck than Macbeth in tone.

New stage productions are being created, completed and commissioned all the time, and it is still an innovative form: while James Cameron’s Avatar might have set new standards for the current 3D craze on screen, the stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse brought to life the movements and actions of horses using amazing puppetry; and for the technically minded, Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth provided such an innovative take on the classic Shakespeare play that for the first time in a long while audiences were reminded that going to the theatre is watching a production, not a rerun—every performance brings something new and exciting to both stage and script, or at least it should. That perhaps is the beauty of theatre. You can watch a DVD over and over again, but a stage production, at its best, can provide the vitality and freshness of the first viewing again and again.