ACE slashes Eastern Angles grant by half

Published Friday 14 December 2007 at 14:55 by Lalayn Baluch

Eastern Angles regional touring theatre company has received a “savage” 50% funding cut by Arts Council England, in a move that its artistic director warns will “devastate” its producing work.

The organisation - which has been taking touring productions around rural areas of East Anglia, including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, for 25 years - has been faced with an unexpected subsidy decrease of £100,000.

Speaking to The Stage, Eastern Angles co-founder and artistic director Ivan Cutting disclosed two reasons given by ACE for the funding drop. He explained: “The reasons that they gave us was that we serve a limited geographic area, have not widened our touring networks and are, therefore, ‘sub-regional’, and that we have not used their investment to lever additional funds, restricting our ability to develop.”

However, Cutting argued that the company was “no more sub-regional than any other organisation working in a particular area” and that there is currently no organisation that covers the entire Eastern region, which combines six counties.

He added: “We have consistently had an entrepreneurial approach to our work, making £60,000 from hiring, sponsorship and merchandising, £30,000 from our own Christmas show, and £50,000 from local authorities - so I don’t see how they can say that we have not levered funds.”

The company produces four shows annually, which it takes to nearly 100 village and school halls and other “non-professional venues in out of the way places”. This year, for the first time, it took a production to London and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won The Stage’s best actress award for Truckstop. It was also nominated for The Stage award for Special Achievement in Regional Theatre at this year’s Theatrical Management Association Awards.

Meanwhile, Cutting has criticised ACE for failing in its commitment to take theatre to rural communities by “savaging the resources of the only theatre company in the east”. The company now intends to lodge a formal appeal to the arts council, which must be submitted by January 15, and request its audiences to “demonstrate their anger at the loss”.