Little more than a month ago, the Arts Council England in association with Metro launched ‘A Night Less Ordinary‘ – a scheme to encourage young people to get cultured and go to the theatre.

Free tickets to all sorts of shows including comedy, tragedies, musical theatre, dance, modern mime, plays, circus and much more are now available for anyone under 26. Over 200 venues over the country are offering the scheme, including our very own Hackney Empire and Arcola Theatre stages here in the borough.

Both theatres have some fantastic shows lined up the the next few months, that I personally would have thought about attending before finding out about the perks to young adults. Women’s classic show The Vagina Monologues is coming to the Empire at the beginning of April, and will star ex-Eastender Jessie Wallace. See my 60 second interview with her this week about coming back to Hackney to star in front of her family, and why she loves performing in the show. The ‘A Night Less Ordinary’ scheme is offered for the show, and I have already applied for my freebie seats.

Alison, Josie and Katy discussing the new scheme

But will the scheme work? Well, the Arts Council set it up in order to reach people of all ages who do not currently engage with the arts, as part of their mission to get great art to everyone.

However, I think if you do not already have an interest in Art then you probably not even consider applying for free tickets. Admittedly, I only found out about the scheme after reviewing a play at the Empire as part of the arts pages this week. If it is going to work, a lot more publicity is needed.

When I watched the play, Bodega Lung Fat on Saturday night, the audience was very thin on the ground. I was the youngest person there, with an average aged audience of around 30. The same applied for arts reporter Katy Barnato, when she attended the performance of The Magic Flute opera, also at the Empire.

She said: “There weren’t many young people there at all, and I don’t expect many of them were using the free ticket initiative. A lot of people were just there with their parents, so I imagine they had been paid for.”

However reporter for the Hackney Post, Josie Ensor said that the scheme has great potential. She said: “I think it’s a good initiative in order to encourage young people to go to the theatre. I think a lot of people believe it costs hundreds of pounds to go and see a show because of prices at the West End, but it’s not actually that bad.

“Once the scheme has dragged you to one show, the likelihood that you will return is pretty high. They’ll be no stopping you,” she added.

At the moment, the only place which advertises the scheme is the official website, and web pages of participating theatres. There have been no flyers or posters to let young people know of the scheme, and to me it seems you must have prior knowledge of the giveaway in order to able to search for it online.

Only time will tell as to whether the scheme, which will run until 2011, will be a success.