Morris: Fund our talent first

Is it possible that Benji Read, the body-popping performance artist and poet, will one day swivel his snake-like hips at adoring crowds in the National Theatre? Could the inspired comic duo Ridiculusmus (a blend of Reeves and Mortimer, Panorama and The Prodigy) shoulder their way between the musicals and the revivals into the West End, along with the storyteller and video artist Kazuko Hohki? Could the Arts Council ever learn to fund these outrageous talents? Ten years ago I'd have given you shorter odds on a kipper learning to shoot crap. Now, I'm not so sure. The future of British Theatre is up for grabs.

This summer, the Arts Council finally admitted that the theatre industry was in a mess. And Chris Smith agreed a £25 million a year package from 2003, expressly to rejuvenate theatre.

The shape of the mess is oddly straightforward. Theatres in London and the regions are enfeebled after 25 years of underfunding and drained of young talent by escalating salaries in TV and film. The result, claimed an Arts Council report last year, is defensive programming, a collapse in research and development, and dwindling audiences. Even the buoyant National Theatre is fighting to attract younger audiences. Research in 1998 showed that the share of its audience under 24 had shrunk from 11 to six per cent since 1991, while the over-55s rose from 17 to an astonishing 42 per cent.

London's vital role in saving British theatre is as a Heineken factor to refresh the parts of the industry other policies have failed to reach. Half of British theatre artists live in London. Forty per cent of small theatre companies are based here, along with the most culturally literate and adventurous audience in Britain. People travel from all over Europe to see the work of Improbable Theatre, Theatre de Complicite, the LIFT festival, the ground-breaking Tricycle Theatre and the inventive British Festival of Visual Theatre. As we speak, the British film industry is feeding off London's theatrical talent: Stephen Daldry, director of Billy Elliot, learned his craft on the London fringe and polished it at the Royal Court. Oscar-winning Sam Mendes still comes home to the Donmar Warehouse to refresh himself with artistic risk.

Some fear that investing in London might further impoverish the regions. The opposite is true. It is London's job to develop new work and new ways of working for the benefit of the whole country. Many who make most impact in regional theatres (Jude Kelly at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Giles Croft at the Nottingham Playhouse) cut their teeth in the creative funk of London.

Today, a new generation of London artists is poised to carry out theatre's necessary reinvention. Out go the old rules of directors, actors and scripts. In come creative teams, multimedia, song and reportage, in work by artists like Toby Jones. Mem Morrison's Lilac caused a sensation at the Oval House last year: "If the words 'performance', 'alternative' or 'visual arts' have previously left you leaping for the nearest taxi, prepare to leap the other way," wrote Attitude magazine.

Other rising talents encouraging audiences new to theatre include poet Roger Robinson, who is collaborating with Arlette George, trainee director at one of London's hot-houses of creativity, the National Theatre Studio. David Rosenberg's company, Shunt, holds wild Sunday night cabarets in a disused railway arch in Hackney.

I know about these people because I meet them every week at the BAC. Even those with startling potential are told there is almost no money to invest in their work. Yet, with the right support, they could be on the brink of reinventing the shape of theatre.

Many of the artists mentioned above are in this year's British Festival of Visual Theatre - at BAC and other venues until 20 October. For a brochure, call 020 7223 2223.