The Stage

Equity lobby takes fund fight to Brown

Published Wednesday 2 August 2006 at 11:35 by Nuala Calvi

Equity is to launch the biggest campaign in the union’s history, galvanising performers, theatregoers, trade unions and MPs to make the case for increased funding for theatre in the looming comprehensive spending review.

General secretary Christine Payne has warned of a crisis in the subsidised repertory sector unless government spending on the arts, which has been on standstill since 2005, increases next year.

However, with other departments already being told their budgets are being cut, campaigners fear the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will face a reduced settlement from the Treasury, while there are also concerns that the 2012 Olympics will see more invested in sports to the detriment of the arts.

At its first meeting last week, the union’s newly-elected council approved a three-pronged campaign, kicking off in September, when Equity’s 37,000 members will be called on to send postcards to their local MPs, urging them to contact chancellor Gordon Brown, asking him to ensure theatre is not forgotten in the forthcoming spending plans.

Similar cards will be produced for members of the public and distributed in conjunction with theatres and venues around the country this autumn, when crucial decisions are expected to be made in Westminster, while a new all-party parliamentary performing arts group will be set up and a reception held in November to focus support among MPs.

Meanwhile a motion will be debated at the TUC Congress in September calling on the government to give theatre an above-inflation increase in 2007 and campaign postcards will be produced for members of other trade unions.

Payne told The Stage: “We’ve never done a postcard campaign before but it’s because we feel we’re at a genuine crossroads in theatre funding that we have decided we have to put our head above the parapet and the new council have completely taken on board that urgency and concern. The message is, ‘Don’t miss the boat, don’t let us go backwards’ - a cut in funding now would be disastrous.

“We want members and theatregoers to show that there is a real interest in and love of our industry and that it’s bloody good value for money, for the investment the government puts in it gets massive returns.”

The campaign is regarded within the union as an attempt to engage with the membership on issues of real concern to it, as well as to embrace a different style of lobbying to the less than successful, closed-door approach used in the run-up to the last spending round, which resulted in real terms losses for the sector. Officials believe that getting the public involved will help them demonstrate to MPs that theatre is not elitist but a popular cause.

Equity’s research and parliamentary affairs officer Matt Payton said: “Getting audiences on board to contribute to a campaign hasn’t happened before in an organised way. There have always been groups like friends of theatres but they haven’t been part of our campaigning work.”

Richard Pulford, joint chief executive of the Theatrical Management Association and the Society of London Theatre, said he was convinced audiences would do “everything they could” to ensure that theatres thrived in the future and encouraged venues to support the campaign.