The Stage

Time for ‘subsidy fat’ generation to move on - Greer

Published Tuesday 2 March 2010 at 15:20 by Natalie Woolman

Playwright Bonnie Greer has criticised some arts professionals of her generation as “subsidy fat” and said they should listen to younger artists familiar with mixed economy funding.

The writer was speaking against the motion “This country can no longer afford to subsidise the arts” at a National Campaign for the Arts debate on Monday.

She said: “I think we’ve got a generational collision in the arts where we’ve got a whole lot of people who are subsidy-fat mentally and we’ve got younger people coming in knowing that it is a much leaner situation. I think that some of those subsidy-fat [people], my generation, need to be eased off the plantation.”

Greer added that she thought artistic directors at major theatres should work to fixed term contracts.

She said: “If I were in charge of the flagship theatres, I would make it that a director would only have a five to ten year job, in the fifth year she or he would have to start looking for their successor, they would have to also demonstrate how they are making efficiencies in the theatre.”

Greer was speaking against the motion alongside RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor who agreed that the arts sector could do with a “dose of salts”.

But Taylor argued that the arts were part of the nation’s infrastructure and that, if the government were to cut funding to the cultural sectors disproportionately, the country would “lose forever key areas of infrastructure, particularly in terms of talent”.

Journalist and National Trust chairman Simon Jenkins proposed the motion with the chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance Matthew Elliott.

Jenkins referred to the recent SOLT figures that revealed that the West End broke box office records for the seventh year in a row last year to suggest that the arts sector was doing comparatively well.

Meanwhile, Elliott addressed the issue of jobs in subsidized sectors. He said: “The political argument will be [] whether the government can really continue to subsidise the jobs of artists when it makes a political decision not to subsidise the jobs of steel-workers at Corus.”

The motion “This country can no longer afford to subsidise the arts” was defeated.