Great Britain Withdrawal from EU (Brexit)

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares189 Views

    For U.K. Bands, Touring Europe Is Now a Highway to Brexit Hell

    by

    It’s not just that musicians need visas. Band merchandise is now a complicated export, and most tour vans are only allowed to make three stops.LONDON — When the British rock band Two Door Cinema Club began playing shows across Europe a decade ago, the group’s three members would jump in a van, throw their instruments in the back and drive from their then hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland, to sweaty clubs in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris.“We did that hundreds of times,” Kevin Baird, the group’s bassist, said recently by phone. “Everything was at a moment’s notice,” he added.Now, it’s not so simple for Two Door Cinema Club — or any British act — to tour Europe. Last Friday, the band headlined the Cruïlla music festival in Barcelona, Spain, playing to an audience of 25,000 screaming fans. But because of Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, the band spent weeks beforehand applying for visas and immersing themselves in complicated new rules around trucking and exporting merchandise like T-shirts.Visas and travel within Britain to apply for them cost 7,500 pounds, about $10,400, for the band, two extra musicians, and an eight-person crew, Baird said. New rules mean that a British tour van carrying audio and lighting equipment, or merchandise, can only make three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Before Britain left the E.U., Two Door Cinema Club would head off on tour at a moment’s notice. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s proved a headache when there was never a headache before,” Baird said. “If we were a band starting out, we wouldn’t have done it,” he added.For much of this year, Brexit has been an even bigger talking point in Britain’s music industry than the coronavirus pandemic. Since Jan. 1, when a trade deal between Britain and the European Union came into force, hundreds of British musicians — including Dua Lipa and Radiohead — have complained that the deal makes touring the continent more costly for stadium acts, and almost impossible for new bands.The new rules are “a looming catastrophe” for young musicians, Elton John wrote on Instagram in June. “This is about whether one of the U.K.’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute hugely to both our cultural and economic wealth, or crash and burn,” he added.Even musicians who supported Brexit have complained. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told a TV interviewer in June that, although he welcomed Britain’s departure from the European Union, he found the new rules unreasonable. He then addressed Britain’s government: “Get your act together,” he said.The furor over the regulations has led to a blame game between Britain’s government and the European Union over which side is responsible for the new barriers, and who made viable offers when negotiating the trade deal.Regardless of who is responsible, the issue has become an embarrassment for the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government is working “flat out” on the issue. “We must fix this,” he told lawmakers in March.Yet so far, there hasn’t been enough progress to appease musicians. In June, Britain agreed to new trade deals that the government said would allow musicians to tour easily in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. This was met with disdain: “Ah those infamous tours of mountainous Liechtenstein with its total lack of airport,” Simone Marie of the band Primal Scream wrote on Twitter.“We’re all becoming increasingly despondent,” said Annabella Coldrick, the chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, a trade body. In June, she helped launch Let the Music Move, a campaign for the government to compensate artists for the new extra costs and renegotiate the tour rules.Rebecca Swann drove her truck from Britain to Spain, carrying the band’s equipment.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe band’s equipment, which now can make only three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The problems are only just starting to become clear,” as the coronavirus pandemic eases and bands start booking tours, Coldrick said. The biggest sticking point was the regulation that vans and trucks can only stop three times before they must return to Britain, she added.Several British music trucking businesses have already moved some of their operations to Ireland to get around the rules. But Coldrick said this was not a viable solution: Trucks would also have to make longer journeys to pick bands up, increasing costs. It also seemed like a poor outcome for Britain, she said, because the country was losing companies and workers.For Two Door Cinema Club, the main issue was visas, said Colin Schaverien, the band’s manager. In June, a member of the band’s crew was rejected for a visa on a technicality related to his job title, so he had to reapply. Another band member, based in Belfast, was told they had to fly to Scotland for a visa appointment.Despite the band’s problems before traveling to Spain, Two Door Cinema Club’s show last Friday went off without a hitch.“All the things we were worried about didn’t materialize,” said Baird, the bassist. The band’s equipment, traveling in a truck from London, cleared customs on the British side in 25 minutes; checks at the border in France took only 10. The band, whose members flew to Barcelona, had no problems at the airport.Once in, the group was so excited to be playing a show after months sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, they took selfies of every moment, Baird said.Fans, mostly in face masks, enjoying Two Door Cinema Club’s show at the music festival.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe crowd was equally excited, said Marc Loan, 36, a fan who was in the audience. “I made sure I didn’t drink much, so I didn’t have to miss anything,” he added.“It was amazing,” Baird said of the night.Brexit was the last thing on his mind during the gig, Baird added, but it reared its head the next day when the band and crew headed to the airport to fly home. Members of the group with Irish passports, which everyone born in Northern Ireland can hold as well as a British one, breezed through passport control; those with British passports were stuck in line for only an hour.The band was pleased with the trip but Baird was worried about how a more complicated schedule would work. “We’re all well aware this was a one-off concert,” he said. “What we’re apprehensive about is next year when we’re playing three different countries in three days. I expect that will be a lot harder.” More

    More stories

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Theater

      In Paris, Brexit Takes to the Stage

      by

      “Exit,” a new musical production, uses the political drama both as a metaphor and as a backdrop for a cross-continental love triangle.PARIS — Brexit, Britain’s protracted disentanglement from the European Union, was always bound to appear onstage. It didn’t take long for productions to reference it in London or in Edinburgh. With “Exit,” a new show at the Théâtre de la Huchette here, the political drama has now reached French theaters — in the form of an effervescent mini-musical.There are sung poll numbers, trips across the English Channel, and plenty of French and British stereotypes. Yet “Exit,” which was co-written by Stéphane Laporte and Gaétan Borg, doesn’t dwell on politics. Instead, Brexit provides a backdrop and a metaphor for the play’s cross-border love triangle and journey of self-discovery.It is a mighty premiere for a tiny theater. The Théâtre de la Huchette boasts only 85 seats, and because of Covid rules, it can currently be only 65 percent full. (The restriction is tentatively set to be lifted next week.) It is best known for its cult, long-running productions of two absurdist plays by Eugène Ionesco, “The Lesson” and “The Bald Soprano.” Both have run for over six decades, with the pandemic the longest interruption in the theater’s history.Since 1981, however, La Huchette has also presented a third production after its Ionesco double bill. There is a touch of absurdity to “Exit,” too, most notably in the story line that brings the three main characters together.All of them work in the video game industry. A French couple, Sybille and Antoine, co-founded a company called Anachronia, which makes intentionally dumb games like “Marie-Antoinette and the Danton Sheep” (in which the French queen is tasked with knocking off sheep) and “Marie Curie Super Radium,” with the famed scientist fighting the Nazis.Then, when Sybille goes looking for a designer for a new project, she finds Mark, an aloof, sarcastic Englishman. The twists and turns designed to bring them together are hardly subtle. Sybille’s enthusiastic yet half-baked pitch would be unlikely to convince a seasoned professional, yet that’s where “Exit” really shines.Pangos and Savary in “Exit.” Her character is French. His is English.Fabienne RappeneauEach game gets old-fashioned, two-dimensional credits on a screen above the cast, and the actors don campy wigs and costumes to demonstrate it, complete with musical numbers. “Trouba-Dance,” Sybille’s Eleanor of Aquitaine-inspired dance game, is an especially uproarious example, and Harold Savary (Mark) brings deadpan game character impressions to the table.The story is set in the run-up to the Brexit vote in 2016, but the political context is mostly mentioned in passing, as a way to signal how much time has passed as well as the cultural differences between Sybille’s French and British suitors. It does make for a few entertaining scenes, as when Antoine and Mark square off with mutual insults and each concludes that the other’s culture remains his “favorite monster.”Laporte and Borg’s songs, with music by Didier Bailly, are less consistent when it comes to character arcs. Antoine (played by the endearing Simon Heulle, a bright presence) is initially depicted as a goofy nerd, but his insistence that Anachronia must produce only inane games — the company’s tagline at one point is described as “Anachronia: 100 percent laziness” — grows somewhat ludicrous.Mark’s character is also seemingly bent to accommodate the plot. Near the end, after he and Sibylle admit their love for each other, he swiftly becomes controlling — a trait that isn’t really foreshadowed. “I just want to be your savior,” he tells Sibylle.The goal is clearly to set up the denouement, Sibylle’s decision to be “alone, standing and without fear,” as the final song puts it. This conclusion is meant to be uplifting, but given the all-male writing and directing team, it feels dictated by empowerment as a generic goal, rather than arriving organically. It’s not exactly a feminist statement for a female character to find self-revelation through a man, only for him to become a pantomime villain, thus justifying a solo ending.That’s a shame, because Marina Pangos carries much of “Exit” with her assured, vivacious performance as Sibylle, down to her interactions with the audience. Every time the character is on the Eurostar, she sits in La Huchette’s tiny auditorium, which stands in for a train car, and addresses audience members as fellow passengers, all with superb comic timing.Leïla Anis in her play “The Monstrous Ones” at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe.Xavier CantatWhile “Exit” was part of the wave of premieres after theaters were allowed to reopen in France last month, other productions are returning to a second life onstage. “The Monstrous Ones” (“Les Monstrueuses”), a play Leïla Anis first published in 2017, found an audience even while theaters were closed. Between January and March, Anis took it to high schools, where artists were allowed to perform.It was revived at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis this month, and it is an eye-catching achievement. Anis performs the lead role and plays four different characters, all women from different generations within the same family, linked by difficult experiences of motherhood.Ella, the sole 21st-century character, learns at the start that she is pregnant and, after losing consciousness, finds herself in a psychiatric hospital, grappling with family memories. She becomes Jeanne, her great-grandmother, who loses her daughter Rosa after divorce; Rosa, who undergoes an illegal abortion; and Zeïna, from another side of the family, who hemorrhages during the delivery of her son in Yemen.There is at times too much back story packed into this one-hour show, to the point that Ella’s growth as a character remains limited. But Anis, who was named an associate playwright with the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in 2020, paints a vivid, often poetic picture of the women’s shared trauma, both in her writing and onstage.Her ability to physically transform from scene to scene — one minute a nearly feral presence with hair over her face, the next a shy young mother-to-be — is a rare gift, and the director of “The Monstrous Ones,” her frequent collaborator Karim Hammiche, makes way for her to explore it freely.Hammiche joins her onstage for a few scenes, as Ella’s doctor during her hospital stay, but this is very much Anis’s show. For French high school students, it offered an opportunity to explore a darker, rarely discussed side of being a mother. Now, at long last, productions like “The Monstrous Ones” are playing in theaters again.Exit. Directed by Patrick Alluin. Théâtre de la Huchette, through Aug. 28.The Monstrous Ones. Directed by Karim Hammiche. Théâtre Gérard Philipe. Further performances to be announced. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      ‘Peter Grimes’ Sails on Choppy Seas of Brexit and the Pandemic

      by

      A production of Benjamin Britten’s opera at the Teatro Real in Madrid highlights the difficult new conditions for British artists working in the European Union.MADRID — In a new production of “Peter Grimes” that premiered at the Teatro Real opera house here on Monday, the people of an English seaside town wave the British flag, and pack into a pub seeking shelter from a sudden downpour.Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera about an ill-fated fisherman is one of the most quintessentially English works in the opera repertoire, but Britain’s recent exit from the European Union, coupled with a travel ban and other restrictions triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, has made staging it in Madrid a journey across choppy and uncharted waters.“Having to deal with Brexit and the pandemic at the same time was diabolical,” Joan Matabosch, the artistic director of the Teatro Real, said in an interview.Allan Clayton as Peter Grimes, left, and the dancer Juan Leiba in the Teatro Real production.Javier del Real/Teatro RealA chorus representing the townspeople surrounding Clayton, lying on the stage floor.Javier del Real/Teatro RealThe show is a coproduction with three other theaters, including the Royal Opera House in London, where it is scheduled to play next March, and 17 people had to travel from Britain to Madrid for rehearsals and performances. Almost all the production’s lead singers are British, as is its director, Deborah Warner.Until Jan. 1, while Britain was in a transition period after its departure from the European Union, British performers could work throughout the bloc without visas. Since then, they have to apply country by country for entry visas and short-stay work permits. Each E.U. member state has set its own requirements, making it even more complex for artists who want to tour the continent.Rehearsals in Madrid started two weeks late, because of difficulties getting visas and a travel ban introduced after a new variant of the coronavirus was identified in England late last year. The performance schedule had to be shortened by one show, with fewer rest days, to allow the British members of the cast to leave Spain within the 90-day limit of their visas. Gregorio Marañón, the Teatro Real’s president, said that he personally spoke with three Spanish ministers to help with the paperwork required for the British visitors.Matabosch said that many of the production’s difficulties arose “because nobody really seemed to know how the new Brexit rules applied. So we had some people who had to make three attempts to reach Madrid, but at least finally everybody got here.”The auditorium of the Teatro Real at the premiere on Monday.Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York TimesPlastic screens have been set up in the orchestra pit between the conductor’s podium and the musicians.Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York TimesUshers at the theater are also taking extra safety precautions.Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York TimesOpera productions are planned well in advance. Four years ago, when the Teatro Real decided to schedule “Peter Grimes” for 2021, Britain had recently voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, “but nobody imagined it would take so long for Brexit to actually happen,” Matabosch said.Negotiations between the British government and the European Union dragged on because Brussels did not want Britain to cherry-pick benefits that apply to its member states while freeing itself of membership obligations. Even after an overall deal was completed, the specifics of many issues were left unresolved, including how travel visas would work for artists.In Britain, a parliamentary inquiry is underway, spurred by a chorus of criticism about the post-Brexit situation for performers, with complaints from major pop stars like Elton John and Dua Lipa. In February, Britain’s culture minister, Oliver Dowden, blamed Brussels for rejecting a British proposal to grant British artists eased access to the 27 remaining E.U. nations. “It is worth noting that what we put forward was what the music industry had asked for,” Mr. Dowden argued before Parliament. But Michel Barnier, Brussels’ chief negotiator, has insisted that it was London that rejected last year an E.U. offer to agree special terms for traveling musicians and other artists.Warner was scathing about the lack of a deal for British artists, saying that the production’s visa problems were the result of “the scandalous negligence of the U.K. negotiators who have failed utterly the music world.”Deborah Warner, the production’s director, said: “I had my doubts about how likely this was, and, at certain moments before I got here, how wise this was.”Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times“Having to deal with Brexit and the pandemic at the same time was diabolical,” said Joan Matabosch, the artistic director of the Teatro Real.Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York TimesSpain was among the countries worst hit at the start of the pandemic, when hospitals in Madrid overflowed with Covid-19 patients. But after a national state of emergency was lifted last summer, Madrid’s opera house reopened, alongside many other theaters across Spain.Since then, the regional authorities governing Madrid have kept Spain’s capital among the most bustling cities in Europe, even though the number of coronavirus cases has recently been creeping up again. While the Teatro Real had to cancel some ballet and orchestra shows, it has staged several operas successfully.The opera house said it had spent about €240,000 — nearly $290,000 — on regularly testing employees and guest workers and that around 20 had to go into self-isolation last month, including cast members for “Peter Grimes.”In an interview before Monday’s opening night, Warner, the director, said: “I had my doubts about how likely this was, and, at certain moments before I got here, how wise this was.” She said she felt “there was a craziness” to the Teatro Real’s plan to stage “Peter Grimes,” which is about a close-knit community and could not be done with social distancing onstage.But looking back, she also said that key themes in Britten’s “shocking opera,” including its references to English nationalism, resonated with “the stress of these times.”The opera house said it had spent about €240,000 on regularly testing employees and guest workers.Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York TimesIn Madrid, the British singers welcomed the chance to perform in a major “Peter Grimes” production involving about 150 artists, at a time when most opera houses in Europe and the United States are closed, but they also sounded anxious about what would come afterward.James Gilchrist, who sings the part of a priest in Britten’s opera, said that 90 percent of his work had been in the European Union rather than in Britain, which made him worried not only about his own future but also the prospects for younger artists. “If you are a promoter in Frankfurt or somewhere like that, you are not going to want to put a British artist at the top of your list, because it is just such a hassle,” he said.“For very well-established artists, that is probably less of a problem because their name on the poster will bring people in, but if you are more at the beginning of your career, I think this is going to be very, very hard.”Matabosch said the Teatro Real was committed to having the best possible lineups, irrespective of nationality. He forecast that the post-Brexit travel rules would become easier to navigate, but he acknowledged that British performers risked losing substitution work, which is an important part of their incomes.“I’m sure that we will end up knowing exactly how to bring over a British singer, just as people also come here from Australia or Canada. But the problem is that if you need a last-minute replacement and have to fly somebody over that very morning, this is not really doable from Britain at the moment,” Matabosch said.Another British member of the “Peter Grimes” cast, John Graham-Hall, thanked the Teatro Real for helping overcome travel hurdles that left him with “the very nasty feeling that the British government does not care about the arts.” He also gave a succinct summary of the twin hurdles raised by Brexit and the pandemic: “It’s a bloody nightmare.”Alex Marshall More