Book Review: Audience Development and Cultural Policy (Steven Hadley: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Abstract

Steven Hadley’s Audience Development and Cultural Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) examines the positioning and practice of audience development since its emergence as a field. He debates the impact that a lack of clear policy direction, combined with the soft power exerted by the cultural management elite of the time, has had on it. He also examines the ongoing debate of whether audience development should be concerned with cultural democracy or the democratisation of culture. Hadley successfully argues that it is the cultural ‘tradition’ in which individuals within the cultural management elite are based that contribute to this binary. It is his description and analysis of both the academic and grey literature and, more importantly, interviews with those who were instrumental in the creation of audience development as a practice that fills an important void in the recording of its history. While his research directly concerns actors and literature within the English arts tradition, this is still an invaluable resource for anyone interested in audience development whether in practice or academia. Not only because it offers a broad insight into the contested nature of audience development, but also because of the suggestion of the impact an influential body of people in practice, can make on policy development.