Bring back Fjernsynsteateret

All my interest in the performing arts came through digital... It started when my wife was away for a couple of weeks, and one evening I sat down in front of NRK and dived into the Fjernsynsteater archive... And saw Antigone with Hålogaland teater, and later Peer Gynt with Bentein Baardson... Eventually I discovered the National Theatre in England and have a subscription to them, and have seen many fantastic plays, incl. a lot of Shakespeare... And with my 10-year-old son I've seen four Holberg plays on NRK.

I started with opera in a similar way. Had never thought it was anything interesting. Then I came across a recording of The Barber of Seville from Stockholm on YouTube and was captivated both by the music and by the costumes and the acting. Watched it in small pieces, and that led to a subscription to the Met Opera, many operas I've seen there + through Arte and OperaVision, and I've also watched three operas in recordings with my son — which led to us going to Copenhagen in the fall break and seeing The Barber of Seville in a fantastic production there (something I would never have done if I didn't know that he liked it)...

I would never have paid 800 kroner to go to the opera if I didn't know that I liked it.

To get into theater, you have to see a lot

The point is that to get into theater, you have to see a lot — many plays by the same person, several productions of the same play. And even if you lived in Oslo and had lots of money, you'd have to wait many years before you got to see a good selection. If you don't live in Oslo it's impossible...

I'm constantly frustrated that this isn't part of the cultural debate going on in Norway. And what's fascinating to me is that I've never heard a single person talk about this as a problem. I don't know any politicians, or any academics, who think this is a point. While I think it's completely obvious, when people are talking about 10 billion for a new building for Nationalteateret in Oslo... Why not then also add a couple hundred million so that everyone in our long, stretched-out country can enjoy it?

Quite the opposite

For me this has been the whole key to an incredible personal growth, but it has also led to lots of actual visits to the theater — meaning that digital offerings are in no way a replacement but rather an invaluable "onboarding ramp". And the same for my son. This has led to one of my most important political causes — however incredibly niche — being that we have to get better digital access to the performing arts in Norway.

What doesn't get recorded

Fair enough that The Barber of Seville doesn't get recorded at the opera in Oslo, there are many good versions of that one. But unique productions like Hulda, and also other newly written Norwegian operas that might only be shown during a festival and never again — I think it's completely criminal that they aren't professionally recorded and made available...

Yes I understand that recording costs money, the idea was of course that either NRK has to step up, or there have to be extra grants for this etc. This is after all an investment with long-term effects — when you look at my son who is both enjoying himself and learning a lot from Holberg recordings made 30 years ago...

To me this is a pretty obvious way to increase the "impact" of the big institutions in the big cities that get all the billions.

How long a program stays interesting

One last thought about NRK, is that I wish they also included in their calculations how long a program stays interesting. There are surely more people who'll want to watch a reality episode this week than a program about poems. But the program about poems can actually be watched and appreciated for 40 years. I watch a lot from the archive — saw a program about Kinck with my wife the other day that was incredibly great! You get completely moved...

And the archive could of course be marketed and made available much better than it is today. Just something as simple as "Ibsen og hans menn", can't cost much to produce, but is totally fantastic to watch! And to some extent this also goes for how much value the country gets out of a theater putting on a production — if it also gets a digital "afterlife".

You also have to think a bit long-term! I'm sitting here now watching programs from the TV and radio archive from the last forty years, documentaries about Wergeland, radio theater and Fjernsynsteater with Ibsen and Greek tragedies... If you invest in making a five-hour documentary series about Grieg then you have it for the next 40 years! But all the chatter and easy listening is completely useless the day after it first aired.

I also think both Skam and Team-Pølsa are good TV that we need. But how can we still preserve the much broader public mission of NRK? Even if people know English and some might listen to a cool history podcast from England, they're never going to do Jon Fosse, Grieg, the Hardanger fiddle, or 1814 the way we do. And Norwegian is still the core language for learning and understanding for most people in Norway.

What's been produced, but locked away

It kind of seems like public institutions like NRK have sort of given up their role as communicators of high culture... It really is a tragedy that Fjernsynsteateret has been shut down — no matter how much I pay I can't get access to stream modern productions.

I wonder how many schools have access to Applaus Scene — they put up quite a few recordings of modern productions there, for example the very interesting version of Peer Gynt that Riksteateret did with Anders Baasmo. I wrote to both Riksteateret and Applaus Scene and asked to pay to see this production... Totally insane that when all the work is done, and it already exists, and the production isn't playing anymore, it's still impossible for people outside of schools to get hold of it...

I begged them for access to Peer Gynt with Riksteateret, for payment, but without success — in the end I had to travel to Oslo to see it in a viewing room at Nasjonalbiblioteket — it's really great and should be available to everyone!

I also think NRK is bad at taking care of the enormous cultural heritage they are after all sitting on. So I made a site where I try to make Fjernsynsteater, along with programs about artists, and eventually also opera/ballet/symphony much more accessible: kulturbase.no.

From letters to a writer at Minerva (July 2024), the artistic director of Teater Innlandet (August 2024), a historian of religion at Høgskolen i Innlandet (December 2024), a literary critic at NRK (February 2025), a producer of theater and opera for TV and a former president of the Storting (April 2025), the culture editor at Morgenbladet (November 2025) and the editor of Periskop (December 2025)

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