British Theatre Guide Blog

Over a year ago a colleague (actress and writer Viktoria Kay) and I were commissioned to write a community play about the town of Jarrow for the Jarrow Festival.  As you can imagine, it took a while and we finished it just too late for the 2007 Festival but we were asked to direct it for this year’s event.

 It’s a big piece, as community plays tend to be, covering the town’s past, present and future, and has over 40 parts for a range of actors, from 15 to 70+ (although they could be played by around 23 actors).  There’s live music, some dance and an opportunity for video work to be incorporated.  And it was to play in five different venues.

Funding applications went in months ago but were knocked back time after time and we eventually were offered funding (with a lot of strings, but we won’t go into that!) less than two weeks before we would have to begin rehearsals.  That’s a week to get the word out, followed by auditions on the Thursday and Friday, with rehearsals due to start the following Monday.

A thankless (although we worked extremely hard) - and ultimately fruitless - task.  The vast majority of those who would have been interested were already committed to other things and we were compelled to knock the project on the head.  Hopefully it might be possible to revive it next year, but who knows? It all depends on the funding.

And there’s the rub.  It turns out that the reason funding was refused was the fact that Viktoria and I were to be paid.  Naturally we were: it’s how we make our living.  But no: funders would not give money, no matter how worthy the cause, if anyone was to be paid.

Most of the organisers of Festival events are being paid, because they are employed by community centres, the local authority or schools and given time to do the work on the Festival.  Without their work the Festival could not take place.  They are professionals who are using their professional expertise to ensure the success of the Festival and are being paid to do so.  We, however, are freelance: nobody employs us full-time.  If we take on a project, then the project has to pay us, and this is what disqualifies our particular project from being funded.  We couldn’t even be offered a percentage of the box office income because Festival events must be free.

Obviously we’re disappointed - massively disappointed - but more than anything else I am saddened that the funding bodies seem to feel that either theatre is not important enough to be involved in a community festival or that, if it is, it cannot have any professional input. They’ll pay for transport hire, costumes and props to be hired , bought or made and lots of other expenses (all payment being made to commercial firms, of course) but not for the professional expertise which will bring the whole thing together and make it work.

Of course, it happens all the time.  You get actors being asked to take part in events or films for free because “it will look good on your CV”, even though others - such as the crew - are being paid.  I was, just this week, asked if I could put a producer in touch with some actors to play ensemble roles in a production for nothing (”It will look good on their CVs”), even though everyone else is being paid.

The problem is that we’re in theatre because we love the job and want to be part of it, so people do take advantage.  Profit-share in one thing - as long as it is fairly done and seen to be fairly done - but exploitation is something else.  I recently came across one company which was offering its actors £5 an hour for performances and nothing for rehearsals.  Now that is not only exploitation. it’s also illegal, but the idea of the minimum wage does not seem to have percolated through to the murkier parts of the theatre world.

What a business theatre is!

In an interview in the Telegraph (see a summary here) in which he tells how the row over the Arts Council’s finding decisions have affected him, Sir Christopher Fraying, chair of ACE, “likened the process of deciding to cut or stop funding for some organisations to weeding a garden.”

I consulted two dictionaries.  One said that a weed is “any useless, troublesome plant” and the other described it as “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants”.

Is this how he thinks of companies like Compass, Quicksilver, Red Shift or London Bubble, or theatres like the Chester Gateway? One has to be kind and assume that he just picked a poor analogy, but even so it is so typical of the attitude of ACE throughout: dismissive of and arrogant towards anyone who objects to their plans.

And this was in an interview in which he laments that “people have treated me like a leper” and “people have said some horrible things.”

Oh poor you, Sir Christopher!  People should just accept that it is OK for you -  behind closed doors, without providing adequate time for reply and without prior warning - to destroy or at least put at risk the work to which they have dedicated their lives.

Talking about Nick Hytner’s “bollocks” comment, he admits to feeling “raw” and said, “The National Theatre is a beneficiary of this redistribution” and  “I can completely understand organisations that are dispossessed getting angry”  which rather tends to suggest he thinks that Hytner should shut up and be grateful - sort of You’re alright, Nick: forget about the rest.

He says, “I am the first chairman of the Arts Council since the 1950s to work in the arts world. It’s a plus and it’s a minus. The plus is, I hope, I understand a bit about the arts. The minus is I know a lot of these people.”

He may know them, but he certainly doesn’t understand them.  He doesn’t understand, as Sam West pointed out at that Equity meeting, that the big theatres and companies depend on the smaller ones because that’s where new actors, writers and everyone else in theatre learn their art.  It’s a pyramid: take away bits in the middle or at the bottom and the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

He told the Telegraph that Arts Council was “staffed by dedicated professionals and that actors did not have a monopoly on caring about the arts.” One must ask: professional in what?

Since Nicholas de Jongh said that it is time for Arts Council to go, others have taken up the cry.  I happen to believe that an arts council is the best way of delivering public funding to the arts (although not the Arts Council as presently constituted)  and Frayling’s mixture of whinging and bluster is not going to change my mind - nor anyone else’s, I suspect.

So now we know.

 The highest profile cuts (the Bush, the Orange Tree, Bristol Old Vic, the National Student Drama Festival and Exeter Northcott) have been reversed.  One wonders how much  the very public support of major theatrical figures like Nick Hytner had to do with that. Perhaps rather more surprising - but most welcome for all that - Eastern Angles have also had their funding reinstated, as have Jacksons Lane, Harrogate Theatre and the Birmingham Opera Company.

But 165 organisations have still been dropped by Arts Council and a further 27 have had their funding cut.  This is core funding and it is what keeps the companies alive: without it, the majority will either have to cut their activities to the bone or close.  Indeed the Drill Hall has already closed and we can expect to hear of more closures over the coming weeks.

No one has a right to Arts Council funding but ACE must assume some responsibility for the companies it chooses to stop funding.  It must give them a reasonable space in which to prepare a case for appeal, enough time to the actual cessation of funding to find alternatives, and be absolutely clear and accurate in presenting its reasons for its decision.  It cannot be said that any of this has been the case this time so a bad taste has been left in everybody’s mouth and trust in the organisation has been severely damaged.

That is probably the worst legacy  of the whole sorry business.  How can the arts world trust ACE after this debacle?  Already one influential figure - Nicholas de Jongh of the Evening Standard - has called for the Council to be scrapped, but if that happened and funding decisions were left to the DCMS, then that would be an even bigger disaster.  The arms-length principle must be maintained.

What is needed is a root and branch look at all of ACE’s funding procedures - a major reconstruction job, in fact.  Incoming chief executive Alan Davey has the Herculean task of re-establishing the arts world’s trust in the organisation and if he doesn’t realise that, he shouldn’t be in the job.  Now that the funding brouhaha is finished (barring any legal challenges), his first job must be to make the Council more arts-led, more transparent and more hands-on.

If, as many of the affected companies have complained, the officer responsible for “looking after” them never leaves the office to see what they are doing, that must change now.  It should be part of their job description that they see the work of the companies for which they have responsibility a minimum number of times a year.

ACE claims that it is putting into action Brian McMaster’s recommendations about excellence.  Excellent!  Now let’s see them institute another of his recommendations - peer review.  Let the professionals assess the work that is being funded, not the desk-bound bean-counters, some of whom wouldn’t recognise excellence in an art form if it hit them in the face with a wet fish.

Since those letters were sent out in December the arts world has been in turmoil and the reputation of Arts Council England has sunk to an all-time low.  If changes are not made - and are seen to be made - then more and more people will start to wonder why we have an arts council at all, and that will take us into very dangerous territory indeed.

Today is the last day for those organisations affected by the ACE cuts to submit their appeals.  From now on, it’s up to Arts Council.

Or is it?  We’ve reached a situation where both sides are so entrenched that it seems unlikely that anyone will budge.  OK, ACE may make a few concessions - the Bush, for example - but for it to do anything else than to inker with its plans would be to admit it is wrong and there is nothing bureaucrats hate more than admitting to error. 

Some organisations have already accepted the situation - they’re the ones we haven’t heard from - but most are firm in the opposition and some will go ahead with plans for a legal challenge. But if that happens ACE has already said that, when it wins as it is sure it will, it will claim costs, thus making the organisation which it has already deprived of funds pay out more.  Whilst that is undoubtedly legally correct, it would be another PR own goal.

The relationship between ACE and its clients, especially in the theatre world, has never been worse, and even though there are undoubtedly some of its decisions which are perfectly justified, nothing short of stopping the cuts and going through a much more transparent process will restore confidence.  But that would be to admit it was wrong, and that seems highly unlikely, to say the least.

Time for adjudication!  Time, in fact, for culture secretary James Purnell to step in and sort out the mess.  For him not to do so would be a gross dereliction of duty.  He is responsible for the health of the cultural sector and the paymaster of ACE.  He has a duty to both sides in the dispute and it is also incumbent upon him, as a minister of the crown, to ensure that the workings of government and of government-funded quangos are transparent and fair. If he fails to intervene, he will lose all credibility in the eyes of the arts world, and with an Arts Council and a minister lacking the respect and trust of the sector, the arts in England will be in a very parlous state indeed.

Over to you, minister!

What a breath of fresh air Brian McMaster’s Review is! (See our summary)  The title says it all really: Supporting excellence in the arts - from measurement to judgement. 

For far too long the arts have been weighed down under tons of  priorities and targets which must be met to get funding. The quality of the work - McMaster’s excellence - has been forgotten in the indecent haste to follow slavishly every government “initiative” (access, diversity, inclusion, etc. etc. etc.)  and to set “measurable” targets (”How many people will take part?” or  ”How many target groups will be reached?” rather than “Is it good?”). 

Now McMaster, with the support - God bless him! - of Culture Secretary James Purnell, had redressed the balance and is proposing putting the pursuit of artistic excellence at the centre - a place from which it should never, ever have been moved.  It says much about the organisation’s utter lack of understanding of what the arts are about that ACE has allowed itself to be led down the social engineering/target setting road with nary a squeak of protest.

“It is,” Purnell said in his introduction to the Review, “time to trust our artists and our organisations to do what they do best - to create the most excellent work they can - and to strive for what is new and exciting, rather than what is safe and comfortable. To do this we must free artists and cultural organisations from outdated structures and burdensome targets, which can act as millstones around the neck of creativity.”

If I had an order paper, I would wave it in the air and shout, “Hear, hear!”

One is tempted to wonder if the bureaucrats in Great Peter Street knew what McMaster was going to say - and how could they not?  He is, after all, a member of the Council of ACE) - and decided to rush their “reforms” through before his Review was published.  If so, they miscalculated badly. 

They cannot (surely? If they did, why go ahead?) have foreseen the furore their proposals would cause. Protests not just from the affected organisations but from theatregoers, Equity, the Theatres Trust, theatre journalists, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all have now been added to by the Conservative Party. Tory culture minister Ed Vaizey said today, making a very pertinent point,  “It is astonishing that the Arts Council was allowed to proceed with cuts before the publication of the McMaster Report.”

He went on to say, “It is completely unacceptable to carry out the biggest cull of arts organisations in history in just six weeks. With the current chief executive leaving in a month, the head of the London arts council already gone, and the new chief executive on holiday in Mexico, arts organisations are entitled to ask who is making these decisions.”

And, we might add, deciding on the timing. 

ACE must cancel the cuts, reinstate the status quo for the time being, give those companies which are genuinely not achieving the chance to put things right, and revisit its whole method of deciding upon who gets what on the basis laid down by McMaster.  If that means we have to wait another year for any changes, so be it. 

And for goodness sake, let’s have some genuine artists at the core of the funding decision making rather than bean-counting, target-setting, social-engineering bureaucrats.

In September 2000, Jo Weston, then chief executive of Arts Council Wales, resigned, following uproar in the Welsh arts world over a string of proposals which showed that the organisation was totally out of touch with the sector it was supposed to serve.  In a feature article at that time, the BTG said, “The organisation has so badly misjudged the mood of the arts community in Wales and has acted with such arrogance that its position and that of Weston have become almost untenable. Hence … Weston’s resignation.”

Some six years later the Welsh Assembly Government - and, in particular, the then Culture Minister Alun Pugh - made the same mistake, in the process sacking the very popular Geraint Talfan Davies as chair of the Arts Council of Wales.  The proposals were defeated in the Assembly and, after a “decent” interval, Alun Pugh lost his job.

If we don’t learn from history, then we are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past, as Arts Council England is in the process of finding out at the moment.  Chief exec Peter Hewitt won’t be forced to resign because he’s going anyway after ten years at the helm, but the organisation is bound to suffer.

Enough press releases to destroy a small forest, protesting websites springing up all over the place, a petition of no confidence on the government’s e-petitions website, a threat of legal action because of the allegation that ACE is not following its own procedures, a hastily-arranged public meeting between Hewitt and members of Equity, and that’s probably the tip of the iceberg, as I suspect there’s an awful lot more going on behind the scenes.

ACE officers I have spoken to (not for publication) are very much on the defensive, stressing that these are just proposals and they may not be implemented.  “They have the right to put their case and be listened to,” one told me.  Tell that to the staff of the Drill Hall who have already lost their jobs!

Now I am willing to admit that probably a few of the organisations which are to be cut are not really delivering as they should, but have they been told this and given the help they need to put things right, which is what ACE’s own guidelines say should happen?

What is obvious, however, is that this is a PR disaster of major proportions which suggests that ACE, like ACW in 2000 and WAG two years ago, is totally out of touch with its constituency and the major fall-out will be, as the e-petition suggests, a loss of confidence in ACE.

In that Power to the People! article mentioned above, we wrote, “In 1997, this site carried five feature articles which were intensely critical of ACE. There were three in 1998, one last year and none so far in 2000. Why? Have I stopped writing critical pieces because I have become softer? No. It’s because ACE has changed radically, become more responsive and in touch with the reality of the arts world, and that change was forced upon it by pressure from the English arts community.”

It’s drifted away again, though, and one of the reasons is that the influence of practitioners has declined and that of administrators has increased.  ACE has adopted the management ethos and quality has been replaced by quantity (of the number of “priority” boxes ticked) as the major yardstick in making funding decisions.

Since this was written a few hours ago, we have received news of the meeting between Equity members and Peter Hewitt at the Young Vic at which the 500 or so members present passed a vote of no confidence in ACE.  Peter Hewitt responded by saying, “”We do not feel they (those present) are representative of the theatre community as a whole and most certainly not the wider arts community.”  He went on to say that it must be remembered that 75% of RFOs are getting an inflation or above increase.

Oh dear!  Another gigantic PR error!  Does he really think that everyone else will adopt an “I’m all right, Jack” attitude?  Surely he can’t be that dumb?  Almost 200 organisations have been cut without warning, without adequate explanation and given only a few weeks to respond: the rest are more likely to think “It could be us next time” than to dismiss the cuts as irrelevant to them.  And this has happened at a time when ACE has actually got more money than expected from central government!

This kind of comment only illustrates how divorced from the reality of the arts world ACE has become.  It’s as well that Hewitt is going, for if he were staying the chances of ACE recovering the trust of the theatre world, at any rate, would be nil.

One hopes that the furore which has erupted over what has been called the most bloody cull in Arts Council history will teach ACE a much needed lesson and that new chief exec Alan Davey will be able to get the arts world behind him and his organisation again so they can work together for the good of the arts in England rather than being at each others’ throats.

So, the Bush is the latest to announce that it faces having its grant cut - by 37.5% - not because of concerns about the quality of its productions but because it is too small as it only has 80 seats. 

No mention of the numerous West End transfers and tours which have originated there over the years (Elling and Whipping It Up last year, for example), nor of the major theatrical figures - writers, actors, directors - who have started their careers there.  No, it’s all down to size, the number of bums it is able to put on seats.

What on earth is going on at ACE?  Has quality ceased to be a criterion for grants?  Some companies which have been threatened with cuts say that they have never had a representative from the regional office at any of their productions, so how can the quality of their work be judged?

The answer, of course, is that it can’t be.  And it is hardly surprising because the number of arts specialists at ACE, regionally certainly but most particularly in Great Peter Street, is smaller than ever before.  More and more ACE staff are admin or management types.  I am reminded of something I was told by a hospital consultant a few years ago.  Financial pressures were forcing him to cancel non-urgent surgery and treatments but there was nonetheless enough money for a revamp of the boardroom which cost in excess of £10,000.

In an article on the Stage website, published today, Ian Herbert, who used to edit Theatre Record, compares ACE as it is now and as it was in 1997.  It makes for very illuminating reading.  Arts Council, he says, “makes policy, a month before (Brian) McMaster tells us what it is, by sending out unexplained dismissal notices to a list it will not disclose.”  It’s an article everyone who is concerned about theatre should read - and be scared by!

Also in the last couple of days, Peter Hewitt, who is stepping down as ACE’s chief exec, has defended the cuts and the short time given for appeal by saying that it will “enable us to get the best value for our audiences from our investments over the full term of the three-year funding cycle.”

As anyone who has worked in local government (where it has been a sacred cow for some time) will tell you, “best value” is a matter of ticking boxes and meeting “priorities”, priorities which are far too often set not by the people on the ground who have to deliver but by the administrators who like things which are quantifiable - not “was this a good play?” but “did it increase the audience by a measurable percentage?” - or even by central government - does it, for example, promote inclusiveness?

In an article which I wrote back in 1999 which touched on funding issues, I quoted the then president of the TMA, Barbara Matthews, who said something which is just as true (if not more so) now as it was then: “Theatres must have the freedom and confidence to experiment with work of quality - to do what they do best rather than operate within a bureaucratic nightmare.”

When will they ever learn?

There’s been a lot of bad news recently: theatres closing (Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree last week) and this week withdrawal of grants from the very troubled Derby Playhouse, the National Student Drama Festival and the Northcott in Exeter and a major cut in the grant to Eastern Angles.

In terms of funding, we can probably expect more of the same in the weeks to come as Arts Council England’s regional offices decide their funding priorities for another three years.  Inevitably there will be uproar, protests and petitions.  Jobs will be lost and local people up in arms.  And what will make it harder to bear is the fact that the arts fared much better than expected in the Comprehensive Spending Review.  “If you’ve got more money, why should we be cut?” will be the cry. 

And it is a very understandable cry, but it would be a mistake to lump all the cuts and closures together  If we are honest - and that can sometimes be hard to be if you are involved - there are times when grant cuts are justifiable.  If a company or theatre is not reaching the standards expected and other unfunded groups in a region are, it surely makes sense to move the what is after all a limited amount of money to where it will do most good.  It’s hard on those who are employed in the affected organisations and also on their loyal audiences, but there are winners as well as losers.  It’s not as if the money is vanishing.

But ACE is a bureaucratic organisation and bureaucratic organisations can make mistakes, so their decisions must be carefully scrutinised to make sure they are soundly based.  And the decision making process must be totally transparent.  What are the criteria against which the affected organisations are being judged and how fairly are they being applied?  How well do the officers really know the organisation and its work?  How often have they visited? How often have they attended board meetings?  Is the decision made on the basis of a thorough direct knowledge of the theatre/company or is it founded on paper?  And if there is sufficient concern for an organisation to be in danger of losing its grant aid, have those concerns been raised with it and has it been given time to respond?  If the concerns appear for the first time in the letter detailing the proposed cut, then any organisation so affected is entitled to protest loud and long - and to be heard.

This kind of redistribution of grant aid is inevitable and probably in the long run healthy for theatre, but it must be done properly.  If it isn’t, then the guilty heads at ACE should roll - after all, they are dealing with the livelihoods of other people.  It is appropriate at Christmas time to insist on strict adherence to the dictum that what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander.

John Tusa’s Arts Taskforce has recommended that Arts Council England’s major Regularly Funded Organisations (ROFs), such as the RSC, the National and the Royal Opera House, should be funded directly by the DCMS, following the lead  given by the Scottish Parliament.

That’s the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and now the Tories in Westminster who want to extend their power over yet another aspect of national life.

Since Jenny Lee set up the Arts Council of Great Britain in the late forties, the arms length funding principle has been central and it must remain so.  For the government to fund directly is a very dangerous road to go along.  We may feel that (should they get into power) David Cameron and the 2007 Conservative Party would not abuse their position by putting political pressure on these organisations, but who can speak for future governments of whatever stamp?

Nick Hytner puts it very well in a statment to The Stage: “I have worked for continental opera companies whose funding comes direct from government. Bluntly, it comes with far more political interference and baggage than ours does. The arts council adds value to the national companies. There’s a productive two-way dialogue between us. Splitting us off would cause more bureaucracy and would waste time.”

The Conservatives have not said that they will accept the report’s recommendations (although the only thing they have definitely said they will not accept is taking sport out of the DCMS) but this is the first time that a major political party has mooted the abandonment of the arms length principle in England and it is a dangerous sign.  Already ACE is subject to government pressure to write its (the government’s) priorities into its funding decisions: once can imagine how much pressure will be put on the national ROFs if they come under direct government control.

This is very worrying.

So details of the Comprehensive Spending Review have now been revealed and the Arts have fared better than expected.  We were warned that the best we could expect was an increase in line with inflation but standstill funding and even a 5% cut were suggested as possibilities.  Indeed, the general feeling was that standstill was the best we could expect and government sources were mentioning a possible 5% cut in order to make standstill funding (which is, of course, essentially a cut in real terms) seem attractive.

But no, we have an increase in line with inflation  over the next three years in the funding to the DCMS and now the culture secretary has announced that the grant in aid which the Arts Council will receive will increase, over the three year period of the CSP’s life, of 1.1% above inflation.  That’s £28m over three years.

But let’s not get too celebratory too soon.  We still have the Cultural Olympiad to pay for, which means that ACE will not have all that money to spend as they wish.  Quite properly, the department has said that free entrance to museums and galleries will be protected, so spending there will increase by at least the rate of inflation, so the amount available for theatre will not be as much as first impressions may suggest.

It is still going to be a very tough period for theatre companies.  We have yet to learn how ACE will allocate its money: will RFOs (Regularly Funded Organisations) get a full inflationary increase?  If they do, then the amount available for the Grants for the Arts scheme, which is essentially project funding, will be reduced.

It’s a tough call.  Is it more important to fund ACE’s big clients or emerging companies which are asking for a lot less money?  I’m a trustee of a RFO, so obviously I want its grant to continue at as high a level as possible, but I’m also the artistic director of a company that depends on Grants for the Arts to be able to deliver our projects.  How can I choose between them?  How can ACE choose between them?  If both deliver the goods, how can one be called more important than the other?

One thing is sure: there are going to be some theatre organisations which are unhappy, but probably fewer than we feared would be the case.