ABSTRACT

Theatre is considered to be an important part of the French cultural heritage and it is far from being a majority pursuit, but interest in it is very widespread. Broad social surveys show that 60 per cent of French adults would like to attend a performance, even though only 18 per cent actually do so in any one year. School theatre productions are few and far between, and the majority of schools do not offer teaching in theatre arts, though they are a possible option at the baccalauréat. The Comédie Française is also the only theatre to be granted a subsidy considered as ’comfortable’, that is, enough to ensure that it can maintain a permanent company of over 50 actors and put on a varied programme without too much worry about audience numbers. In the 1980s, Bernard Pivot famously banned theatre from his well-known television review of books and the arts, Apostrophes, on the grounds.