ABSTRACT
The accounts of the financial year ended 4 April 1970 showed the Company to be in some difficulty. The net deficit amounted to £12,754. It was reported that ‘the liquid reserves of the Company have effectively been exhausted by the net loss for the year’. This in spite of the fact that the box-office had averaged 57.6 per cent and seats sold amounted to 64.9 per cent. Though the cost of productions was under budget by £3,300, the addition of two Artistic Directors cost £4,100, publicity was over budget by some £1,400 and payments to visiting companies exceeded the allocation for payment to artists by £2,400. What may appear minor in scale does, when added in to the overall costs, prove significant. The telephone bill, for example, rose by over 50 per cent in the last nine months of the year. The report somewhat drily suggests that ‘the only reason that can be offered is increased activity in the theatre, with three Artistic Directors’. The next three months, however, showed an improvement. In the main bill, Widowers' Houses, followed by the visiting Café La Mama, and David Storey’s new play, Home, produced figures which averaged 58.3 per cent box office. Three Months Gone at the Duchess Theatre, was producing a small profit for the Court, but The Contractor at the Fortune Theatre was still recovering its production costs. Overall costs were under budget but the two main factors in the recovery were first, the contributions to costs made by outside managements to Widowers' Houses (Michael White and Memorial); to The Contractor (Michael Codron); and to Three Months Gone, which ran to 5 September. Second, the seat prices at the Court rose with the production of Home. The capacity take rose, therefore, from f379.14.od. to f443.15.od. By 4 July, the position financially was better than anticipated by £6,900.
