Gossip: Is John Godber Set to Leave Hull Truck?

Andrew Smaje, Chief Executive said: “It is wrong to
say that John Godber is ‘leaving Hull Truck’. It was
made very clear in Hull Truck’s statement issued to the Hull Daily Mail
that John Godber and Hull Truck will continue to work
on productions both present and future.”

Hull Truck are currently staging Godber’s comic drama The
Christmas Office Party from 2 December until 15 January 2011.
They are also planning a new production of April in
Paris which ends its extensive national tour with a two week
run at Hull truck in June 2011.

A Hull Truck spokesperson said: “The working relationship between Hull
Truck and John Godber was always that of an independent artist whose
services were secured through a retainer.”

Smaje indicated that the value of Godber’s retainer, as written in the
Hull Daily Mail was “purely speculative.” The new informal relationship
between the theatre and Godber will not involve this financial retainer.
Regardless of the amount paid to Godber in the past, his plays have
generated £6.5m for Hull Truck over the past 26 years.

The spokesperson stressed that the change in relationship does not
indicate a huge difference for Hull Truck and Godber, but that the news
has been misinterpreted: “The move from a formal relationship to a more
informal one is not as radical as it sounds; John’s new relationship
with Hull Truck allows him more options to work outside of Hull Truck
and is of great help to the theatre in times of significant cuts in
funding to the arts.”

Fans of Godber’s work with Hull Truck need not mourn the end of his Hull
Truck career; the change in relationship seems only to indicate the end
of his retainer payment. We can look forward to more collaborative work
between the two, in addition to seeing Godber in other theatre
settings, in the new year.

– Ruth Kilner