Arts Council Funding Cuts

[ardcarp]

I know there is a thread under Performance about Arts Council cuts to ENO.
However, I suspect forthcoming austerity will result in more cuts everywhere if this piece from Nicholas Daniel is anything to go by. (It was originally on Facebook, but I'm sure Nick Daniel will be more than happy to spread the word here.)

‘I’ve waited until now to talk about this [....] because I wanted to try and be calm when I wrote this, but it is completely impossible to be so.
I was a founder member of Britten Sinfonia all those years ago and I have stayed as their Principal Oboe, frequent soloist and sometimes conductor all this time; with the immense pride that comes with seeing a group you helped to start really flourish into something historically important.

It’s footprint is unique, focusing on the East of England, especially with our outreach work, but flying the flag for Britten and Britain all over the world.
There are hundreds of living composers who have been performed by us, many of them some of the most important names in music, and most often commissioned by us. For example, last summer I gave, with Andrew Watts my third Tavener World Premiere at Snape with the orchestra, John was inspired to write by me AND by the orchestra and how open minded and utterly brilliant they are. Our outreach work is simply the best in the field, and has touched many many lives.

We have won award after award and our work has been supported tirelessly until now by Arts Council England, but we NEVER took that money for granted and an immense amount of time and energy was given to our latest application, only to be presented with a 100% guillotine cut; all of this for an ensemble serving principally a region, the East of England, that has some of the most demanding problems in the country, when the government and the Arts Council say they want to decentralise arts funding.

It’s impossible to list all that Britten Sinfonia has achieved, but suffice to say nothing in the Arts Council’s excuses for reallocation of money seems to fit with our achievements and our raison d’etre.
I keep thinking that a huge mistake has been made, or that I will wake up from an incredibly bad dream at any moment.

It’s cultural vandalism at its worst and ideologically indefensible.

Huge support to all those, such as my dear friends at ENO, who are suffering similarly.

Nick ‘

[pastoralguy]

As a subscriber to The Times online I’ve been appalled by some of the comments that have followed the various articles about these cuts. Generally, they fall into the category of ‘well, why should tax payers pay towards something we don’t like and don’t use’ and ‘let the luvvies pay for unsubsidised tickets if opera and the arts are any good’. The words ‘for the wealthy’ seem to crop up a lot too.

[Old Grumpy]

As a subscriber to The Times online I’ve been appalled by some of the comments...
... The words ‘for the wealthy’ seem to crop up a lot

Are Times readers not 'wealthy' then?

[pastoralguy]

Are Times readers not 'wealthy' then?

Not this one!

[RichardB]

It’s cultural vandalism at its worst and ideologically indefensible.

That depends on your ideology of course.

[ardcarp]

Richard B...they were not my own words, of course.

[RichardB]

Richard B...they were not my own words, of course.

No indeed - they seem to be the words of someone who thought they broadly supported a "conservative" agenda and then found that when push comes to shove it doesn't include support for intelligent culture. Most of us have known that for many years!

[smittims]

I'm reminded of what Britten himself said about innate philistinism in Britain. There are other countries with governments far less prosperous than the UK who still fund their arts loyally.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Are Times readers not 'wealthy' then?

There’s a very good letter in the Times today from Sir David Pountney on the ENO cuts which I’ll post on the ENO thread . It comes from the non-toff postcode of Lambeth and Brixton.

[gradus]

I learnt last night that our county library service received Arts Council bounty, so not all bad news.

[ChandlersFord]

Why does the ACE continue to fund the Royal Shakespeare company, when it is now a shadow of a shadow of its former self?

'Corrected' productions of 'problematic' Shakespeare texts, featuring reverse gender casting that rarely adds anything, performed by newbies most of whose jobs have been on television and whose every utterance evinces discomfort with the language they are called upon to speak.

No commitment to new work that isn't 'educational' in purpose or an adaptation of a historical best-seller.

No permanent London home after it spurned the one offered to it (on a plate) by the Corporation of London.

Keep the NT by all means (and enhance its touring commitments) but the RSC should be allowed to go to the wall.

[RichardB]

It's all very well to say that one organisation or other should "go to the wall", but what you're talking about there is significant numbers of highly talented, trained and dedicated people who "go to the wall" with it - people who have already had to put up with the cancellation of their working lives for two years and to whom the government now adds insult to injury. The tragedy is that there are always these squabbles between advocates of this or that organisation as if it's right that there should be a diminishing amount of funding available for a sector which has already been whittled down to almost nothing over the course of decades. The last time I personally received ACE funding for anything was in the 1980s, when I obviously had a much lower profile as an artist than was subsequently the case. I could see the way this was going and left the country for good a few years afterwards. When you think about how little it costs for a country like the UK to have a thriving cultural life at an international level of excellence, compared with how much it costs to subsidise thieving landlords or to maintain an "independent nuclear deterrent", there is no reason why any major theatre company or orchestra or opera house or any such thing should have its funding cut off. It's the ideology of the moneyed philistine. It should be resisted at all costs, rather than indulged by saying the RSC or anything else doesn't "deserve" the support they've been getting.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Why does the ACE continue to fund the Royal Shakespeare company, when it is now a shadow of a shadow of its former self?

'Corrected' productions of 'problematic' Shakespeare texts, featuring reverse gender casting that rarely adds anything, performed by newbies most of whose jobs have been on television and whose every utterance evinces discomfort with the language they are called upon to speak.

No commitment to new work that isn't 'educational' in purpose or an adaptation of a historical best-seller.

No permanent London home after it spurned the one offered to it (on a plate) by the Corporation of London.

Keep the NT by all means (and enhance its touring commitments) but the RSC should be allowed to go to the wall.

Not sure axing a world renowned company which has produced some of the most memorable theatre on the grounds that you don’t like some of their productions is much of a policy really. I’ve sat through some awful stuff at Covent Garden over the years as well as some of the greatest nights in the theatre I’ve ever had. Isn’t that what live performance is all about ? Bouquets one night , rotten tomatoes the next …

[ChandlersFord]

The RSC’s renown is very much in the past, imo. Admittedly, some of their problems - a lack of suitable actors, as the art of playing the classics in theatres has been lost - are not of their own making. But their seeming determination to be a ‘glittering coffin’ with their Mantel adaptations and MainStage TIE work - is very deliberate and shameful. They’re no longer a world class theatre company, so give their funding to someone who deserves it.

[RichardB]

They’re no longer a world class theatre company, give their funding to someone who deserves it

This is what I believe is called "victim-blaming."