Memorandum submitted by The Almeida Theatre
Shouting into the void is what it felt
like. Year after year through the 80s and 90s we pleaded with
the government to invest properly in our nation's arts. We advanced
all the right arguments: spiritual and social health, urban regeneration,
racial inclusion, creativity in the lives of young people, the
means for society to examine itself, the opportunity for people
to better understand themselves, the arts' unique ability to humanise
and civilise. Through agonising years of Tory Philistinism we
tightened our belts to the point of emaciation. Then with a change
of government (after initial uncertainty) we finally got through.
Here were people who believed in all the above arguments and put
their money where their mouth was. The last two rounds of public
spending have brought the arts roughly to a point of equilibrium,
to where they would have been had it not been for years of starvation.
The effects are unmistakable, particularly in
the theatre; bolder programmes, larger cast plays, accessible
pricing, increased sponsorship, expanded outreach and education
policies and above all, higher quality and finer creativity within
a more confident, robust, re-energised art form across the nation.
Why bolder, why finer? Because subsidy provides the safety net
to enable us to take risks. "The right to fail" is a
much cited, but frequently misunderstood phrase, perhaps "the
right to risk failure" would be more helpful. Audiences come
to the theatre for something they can find nowhere else, something
special, original, unique—a live event at that moment, which
will take them on a new journey. Our challenge as artists is to
re-enliven, to thrill, to reveal. We cannot achieve that by regurgitating
yesterday's model. We have to pick up from yesterday and create
for today by reaching towards tomorrow. The moment we play safe
we produce dead theatre. We need to reinvent, progress and move
on towards the new, the unknown. That, by definition, is always
a risk, but it is what audiences crave and when it succeeds, they
rise to their feet and yell—and come back for more. Safe
theatre will in the end drive them away and is therefore, ironically,
very dangerous.
Subsidy is what buys us that crucial right to
experiment, to venture, to risk failure. We may indeed fail, but
without risk, there is no possibility of genuine achievement,
of progress. Around the country there is currently a feeling of
new energy, of rising standards and thus rising audiences. The
nation's companies and theatres, which have struggled and limped
along for so long, are springing to life. There is the real possibility
of theatres once again beginning to take justified pride of place
at the centre of their communities.
But now word is creeping out that public investment
in the arts may be about to slip back, because "it's the
museums' turn". So I want to say to Tessa Jowell, please
do not let this happen, do not rob Peter (the arts) to pay Paul
(museums). It's a short-sighted, insidious, divide and rule policy.
Don't let anyone force you into such a destructive choice. The
money is there. When we supposedly need it for "defence"
(nearly always in reality, as in Iraq, "attack") huge
sums are suddenly and miraculously available. By comparison, what
we need to fully provide for theatre is infinitesimal. Even in
crude economic terms it's irrefutably logical and beneficial.
A recent study carried out by the University of Sheffield revealed
that for an investment of a mere £121.3 million, theatre
has an economic impact of £2.6 billion.
Do not undo all the achievements of recent years
by de-stabilising the arts, just at the moment when it is beginning
to reach a fulfilling level of activity. You clearly agreed with
our—and our audience's—arguments, otherwise why would
you have so boldly increased subsidy to the arts in the first
place? What sense would there be in reversing such enlightened
and creative achievements, why now reduce activity, encourage
artistic caution and discourage sponsors and audiences alike?
It would be utterly perverse.
Let both the arts and museums grow, develop
and flourish. If you do and continue to do so, I believe in times
to come we could look back on the coming decade as one of extraordinary
artistic progress and achievement. Ironically, as the world gets
smaller, language becomes increasingly impoverished and social
fracture is a daily event, we have never needed the arts' ability
more to engender social empathy and human understanding.
January 2005
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