Leading playwrights call for Bush funding cuts to be scrapped

Published Wednesday 16 January 2008 at 18:20 by Alistair Smith

More than 100 of the UK’s leading playwrights, including Harold Pinter, David Hare and Tom Stoppard, have signed a letter to Arts Council England asking it to reconsider its proposed cut in funding to the Bush Theatre in west London.

The new writing venue, which has launched the careers of numerous UK playwrights, is threatened with a cut in subsidy of £180,000 from April - which would represent a drop of nearly 40%.

The letter explains: “Playwriting has always been at the heart of Britain’s theatrical life. Our playwrights are the envy of the world because there have been and are theatres able to devote resources to the development and presentation of their work. The Bush Theatre is unique as a theatre prepared to produce first plays, take risks on new playwrights, and thus launch careers. For 35 years, the Bush Theatre has discovered, developed and presented distinctive playwrights, whose work gives an extraordinary account of contemporary Britain and our changing world.”

It continues: “Arts Council England’s proposed cut would seriously diminish the theatre’s capacity to serve playwrights, the wider theatre community, and audiences, present and future. We ask Arts Council England to enable the Bush Theatre not just to survive, but to thrive.”

Other signatories to the letter include Margaret Atwood, Caryl Churchill, David Edgar, Mike Leigh, Arnold Wesker, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Neil LaBute, Hanif Kureishi, Christopher Hampton, Salman Rushdie and Stephen Poliakoff.