ColumnsThere were plenty of us deeply cynical when, six years ago, James Purnell (remember him? now not only an ex-culture secretary, but an ex-politician who is one of Tony Hall’s new brains at the Beeb)…
Arts funding
Stats entertainment – arts and the economy
The timing is almost uncanny. Barely has Maria Miller’s challenge to the cultural community to put its earning power where its begging bowl is than Arts Council England, her own begging bowl at arm’s length,…
The business of our industry is producing quality art
So, Mrs Miller has made the pre-CSR speech in which she urges the cultural community to get businesslike and entrepreneurial, just while we get past this tricky moment with the Chancellor. Every culture secretary does…
Back to school for Camden Council
The kind of craziness that was bound to emerge when local authorities are being dumped on in the way that they are has surfaced, and it’s in Camden. And it’s nothing like the kind of…
Critics Circle not out after scoring a century
The Critics Circle was 100 years old last week, and it’s been a colourful history. “I wish I were anything rather than an actor”, William Macready wrote, “except a critic: let me be unhappy rather than…
A Rose-y future for ENO?
Martyn Rose, who is most often described as a “serial entrepreneur” but also seems to be something of a serial chairman, is taking over at English National Opera, from Peter Bazalgette who was in the…
Why the Oliviers shouts My Theatre Matters
The Oliviers shortlist has been announced, only the second time that this has happened publicly. The list is, sort of, predictable, but equally predictable are the stories about “who’s missing”, those who deserved to be…
Will the ROH be next to benefit from the Tate touch?
Well, it’s not Alan Rusbridger, not Alistair Spalding, not Jude Kelly, not Brian McMaster, not Nick Kenyon, not even Ruth Mackenzie. And why we should be surprised that it is Alex Beard who has been…
Not so hot in the City
As Sir Peter Bazalgette settles into his chair at the head of Arts Council England, Ian Ritchie is preparing to vacate his as director of the City of London Festival. Many will be pleased at…
Cool Brittenia celebrates a centenary
Peter Grimes was Benjamin Britten’s first opera and still is his finest, its melancholy story of a fisherman and his drowned apprentice appreciated by audiences the world over. But it has never been staged in…
Will it be arts and business or arts vs business?
There’s a slightly scary pragmatism working its way into the arts in the shadow of the recession, and Peter Bazalgette is a champion for it. He believes with all his heart in the arts, but…
Ovalhouse still squaring up to the challenge of politics
Ovalhouse is 50, and it really ought not to be. It should either have been closed down, defunded or it should simply have run out of steam 25 years ago by all the norms for…
Arts provides a perfect stage for posturing politicos
The arts joyously took responsibility for forcing Michael Gove’s EBacc u-turn, though there was no acknowledgement from him or anyone else in the government or the education department that the arts had anything to do…
Is this the beginning of the end to the arts’ ‘no paid’ workforce?
Quietly and getting practically no political notice at all, something is happening that could change the cultural industry for ever and influence the national economy in a major way. It’s called modestly, almost shyly, the…
The regions are the lifeblood of British theatre
Congratulations to West End theatres which seemed to have turned what many expected to be a disastrous year in 2012 into a bumper one – not as good as the record of 2009, but close…
On Her Majesty’s secret service to the arts
Does royalty matter? I don’t mean the concept of sovereignty, that’s an issue that will always be a matter of opinion. I mean being allowed to carry ‘Royal’ in your title. You have to petition…
New work is the battleground for opera flagships’ fight to survive
Arts Council England, we’re told, is going to rethink its opera policy following the shock news from English National Opera. ENO’s figures for 2012 were almost sneaked out under the wire with no press conference…
Putting opera out on the streets
At first sight you might think that Streetwise Opera is one of those governmental social experiments of the early noughties in which art gets harnessed to do something it was never intended for, and as…
Go West is what NCA’s gotta do
The National Campaign for the Arts is not closing, its new chairman Sam West is very clear about that, but it’s changing. What he is not so clear about is what it will change into,…
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her…
Poor Mrs Miller. It’s not going to be much of a Christmas break for her, what with everything she has on her plate. There’s the broadband thing, Leveson, the women bishops (because she’s equality minister…
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