REACTION: A critic's plea: stop all arts funding now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11630643/A-critics-plea-stop-all-arts-funding-now.html

This article just makes my skin crawl. It is thoroughly flawed and fundamentally wrong:

Looking at this purely from a producing theatre viewpoint (the article itself completely disregards other areas of arts funding), Douglas McPherson doesn't acknowledge the breadth of Arts Council England (ACE) streams within the theatre industry, instead insinuating that arts funding is only directed at writers, who should be 'supporting themselves with day jobs as waiters or whatever, until they produce a saleable script'. To say 'I can't think of one funded show that was any good' demonstrates a lack of understanding of how theatre is produced or funded, as well as spouting contentious sweeping statements.

Most of our flagship producing theatres in the UK such as the National Theatre or the Royal Opera House, and most of our regional producing houses are heavily funded through ACE, as well as individual theatre and dance companies, site-specific projects, educational services and arts festivals.

The idea that the best art will be commercially viable is just not true. Some of the best work I've ever seen would not have been commercially viable without public funding and would not have received corporate sponsorship because such theatre is a very high-risk investment. But more to the point, the arts are not about making money, they are about enriching our culture.

There is abhorrent snobbery in his attitude towards 'subsidised theatre', as if it is somehow inferior just because of its funding structure. In fact, on the contrary - commercially-funded theatre is often subject to the pressures of influential producers, who have the capacity to stunt artistic development and intuition in the cause of financial gain should they wish to.

The statement 'Well, those living rich on state handouts would panic, wouldn't they?' is dangerously close to the anti-poor, anti-benefits rhetoric that we hear from the right-wing press and political parties. There is much more that I could have said here, but suffice to say this is not the kind of thing we need to hear right now with potentially more arts funding cuts looming, especially from someone who has been reviewing theatre for the past 20 years.

Something to Shout about

It's been a very long time since I posted anything on here so I thought it was about time really, and now I have something to write about.

I've just spent the last two weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe as the Production Manager for 'Shout the Mod Musical'. I have to say, daunting, nervous, sceptical and responsible were all words that would describe my state of mind in the days leading up to it. My first main worry that we wouldn't fit everything we needed in our fairly compact van was soon overcome with the use of some strong, brainy people who had a good grasp of 3D tetris, and I imagine 7 years of packing the car for boarding school probably helped too!

After a long and sleepy van ride to Edinburgh by the very capable (if not mildly terrifying at times) driver Hayley, we turned up at our accommodation, dumped our stuff and headed for the Royal Mile where we would be spending every afternoon for the next 11 days, presenting complete strangers with a flyer and trying to convince them to part with their money and watch our show. I reckon you get about 2 seconds of initial attention from them, in which time you have to pique their interest by saying something like '60s musical, live band?'. If you get past that stage with more than the shake of a head or 'no thanks' or simply being ignored (rude), then you might get a few more seconds to say a bit more about the show and tell people how to get there. All this must be completed with sufficient smiling and energy, but not so much as to scare people away. This becomes more difficult when you've been doing it for 3 hours with the usual mixture of bright sunshine and torrential downpours. It is fair to say that while sometimes quite fun and getting the chance to meet some really cool people including inviting Jeremy Paxman and Joanna Lumley to the show (I know, highlight of my career) flyering was my least favourite activity of the last 2 weeks!

To boost our flyering efforts, we took to the mini stages on the mile and performed a medley of the show songs. This quickly attracted lots of attention and big crowds gathered around us. There's something rather heart-warming and satisfying to see those people who grew up with the music of the 60s singing along with us and remembering all of the words.

That first evening we did a rather squashed run through of the show in the living room of the new flat, the first time that we'd actually run this cut-down version of the full show that we put on back in April in Liverpool. The next morning we were up at 5am to get to our technical rehearsal at 6am. Not cool. Some of us had less sleep than others due to a rather loud snoring problem... (you shall remain anonymous *cough* Adam Murdoch *cough*). Because we'd brought so much equipment with us, we had very little time to actually 'tech' the show, with just a very brief sound check, a run of a dance routine and a bit of singing. That afternoon, our first public performance would be the dress rehearsal. All things considered, it went very well and resulted in a glowing 5 star review (http://www.broadwaybaby.com/shows/shout-the-mod-musical/701442 just saying...). Over the next 11 performances the audience numbers fluctuated but on the whole we were pretty happy with them, peaking at about 70% capacity. The audience reactions to the show overall were fantastic, if a little embarrassed at the more risqué moments...

Living with 15 other twenty somethings is quite an interesting experience too, sleeping on a combination of double beds, air mattresses and sofas, and made even more entertaining when we had visitors staying too! I found myself chatting to everyone about anything and everything and having those bizarre conversations that can only take place at 4am!

A mixture of antics ensued while we were there, including to-the-point show reviews from a certain actor (Fifty Shades of B*****d Sh*te!), me ending up in a kilt and a fruit hat as part of a comedy routine, people not returning to their own beds of a night and endless singing/humming/melodica-ing of the show tunes. I've had an absolute blast and couldn't have wished to spend the last 2 weeks with a more fun, caring and talented bunch of people. I was worried I'd just have to 'grin and bear it' but instead I could 'forget all my worries, forget all my cares'. Here's to the next time!