Where We Dream

Where We Dream: West Bromwich Operatic Society and the Fine Art of Musical Theatre

“The professional art world’s disdain for amateurs is pretty comprehensive – and unjustified. It’s hard not to see it as self-protection, a way to keep hold of the money and attention. The Arts Council of Great Britain ruled out support for amateur arts when it was setting its principles in the 1950s. That position has eroded a little since it gained funds from the National Lottery in the 1990s but remains largely in place: amateur artists need not apply.

One consequence is that policy-makers have a distorted idea of cultural life. In 2011, the Arts Council published a list of local government areas ranked according to people’s ‘engagement in the arts’, a calculation based on a single question in a household survey. Third from the bottom was Sandwell in the industrial West Midlands – an area I’d known for years through working with Jubilee Arts, Multistory and Black Country Touring and whose rich, diverse cultural life the Arts Council seemed not to know. So, with Multistory’s support, I began meeting some of the people involved in local culture with the intention of drawing attention to their work. When I met West Bromwich Operatic Society I knew I’d found the story. After all, they’d been producing theatre in the town since 1937 – almost a decade before the Arts Council was created.

That winter, I followed the company as they rehearsed and produced Mel Brook’s The Producers, a musical about putting on a musical. I got to know and admire this group of people who, like true amateurs, were motivated by their love of theatre and wanted to put on the very best production they could. They worked incredibly hard but my abiding memory of those months is happiness and laughter: this was a joyful experience and it was a great pleasure to be witness.”

- François Matterasso

Working with filmmaker Ben Wigley and photographer Kate Jackson the publication Where we Dream and accompanying film were produced in 2012 and shared with the members of the West Bromwich Operatic Society.