Mr. S?im? Campbell:

As musicals are considered commercial, we do not receive funding from the Arts Council. I am mainly working on new musical writing. I am based in the UK. I will refer to three musicals, one of which is being produced in Ireland. I will come to that one in a moment. Despite efforts to make the other two musicals home-grown with all-Irish teams and Irish directors, one is going to Canada and the other to the UK. While we would have loved to have grown these musicals and premiered them on home shores, sadly they are both heading further afield next year.

The exciting opportunity for this year is that RTÉ is producing its first piece of theatre, or its first new musical, Toy Show the Musical. Hopefully it will show that what can be done. It is a commercial title, based on something we all know and love. It is our responsibility to show audiences what theatre and musical theatre can do. RTÉ can do it because it is our national broadcaster. It is a massive risk and it is incredibly brave of RTÉ to do it. How can our national theatres and freelance producers take similar risks and we cannot? They are viewed as being commercial and that is why we do not get funding for all of the new work.