The recent Arts Council England (ACE) settlement could not have come at a worse moment, especially for London-based organisations. On the back of a cultural meltdown during Covid-19, several years of meagre funding settlements and now a cost-of-living crisis, the UK’s global reputation as a cultural leader is clearly threatened. Arts administrators, musicians, singers, actors, highly qualified technical and production professionals are already battered and bruised. Many are leaving the profession completely. And although there are winners in this funding round—with many first-time National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs, effectively those that receive ACE funding) outside of London presenting exciting visions for their future—sadly, for many organisations, it continues to be just more bad news.
ACE have at least secured wins in the regions and increased the diversity of their recipients. However, it is profoundly short-sighted to divert around £30m of London’s funding to the regions (under what appears to be a politically motivated directive from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport). It has resulted in sending one national organisation, English National Opera (ENO), to the gallows, as well as the removal of £2.9m a year from one of our greatest artistic jewels, the Royal Opera House (ROH), which also happens to be the second largest employer of artists in the entire country.
During Covid-19, Rishi Sunak and Oliver Dowden came to the rescue, as the government gave a lifeline of over £1.5bn to the arts. It saved the industry, although, sadly, commercial theatre producers were totally ignored. For a moment, one felt as though the government appreciated the fact that the UK’s creative industries are a global success, one of the country’s biggest employers (accounting for around 2.2m jobs) that generated over £115bn towards the economy in 2019.
Why make this level of emergency investment, to only then pick a fight with the arts community by instructing ACE to reduce its financial commitment to London and hammer world-renowned organisations, such as Glyndebourne (who are losing half of their touring subsidy) and Welsh National Opera (who have a third of theirs)?
Theatre has not escaped the cuts. Maybe ACE has good reasons for withdrawing all the subsidy from the Hampstead Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse, but they are not immediately clear to me. Nor is it clear to Sam Mendes, the former boss of the Donmar, who has said that this funding settlement—such as it is—will “wreak long-lasting havoc” on the industry. Our nation’s theatre is producing writers who have become international superstars, such as Lucy Prebble (HBO’s Succession). Where would writers of real importance, like James Graham (TV’s Sherwood and countless hit plays in the West End and on Broadway), be without early commissioning opportunities in British theatre?
It’s pure vandalism to withdraw funding from institutions that are nurturing new talent. The late Anthony Minghella, an Academy Award-winning director and writer, cut his teeth in subsidised regional theatre for years. People who think that the arts are for the elite alone and aren’t worth supporting might want to reconsider their views when they next watch The Talented Mr Ripley or The English Patient.
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said that “these cuts could not have come at a worse time.” I agree, but Khan must surely know that in the rest of Europe arts funding is hugely supplemented by the mayors’ offices in countless towns and cities. Not only do they support their local arts institutions through direct funding, but mayors’ offices are often responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the buildings themselves. Not so in London.
ACE’s annual budget of around £500m is extremely modest when compared to other countries in Europe. Indeed, there are several cities on the continent that spend similar amounts—by themselves. The UK now inhabits a cloudy space between the US funding system—which has negligible public subsidy and tends to hinder aesthetic adventure and risk—and the continental European system that demands and rewards artistic innovation. The European approach does not penalise controversy and insists on ticket-price accessibility as an essential requirement for funding.
Contrast that European approach with the launch of ACE’s ten-year plan in April 2019, “Let’s Create”, which was overshadowed by some communication misfires. ACE’s deputy chief executive for arts amd culture, Simon Mellor, shot himself and the organisation in the foot with the statement: “Relevance not excellence will be the new litmus test for funding.” ACE’s current director of music, Claire Mera-Nelson, says that “it is sometimes more important to think about audience opportunity than it is to always prioritise the quality of the platform.” If excellence and quality are not the bedrock for future funding decisions, then we are in a great deal of trouble.
The reaction from the arts community to these developments has not exactly been deafening. Perhaps, after years of seeing their subsidies fall in real terms, our artistic leaders have become weary. This would be perfectly understandable.
Or perhaps there is a fear of speaking out. This would be less understandable. If cuts can happen to one organisation now, they can and will happen to others at some point in the future. Their combined voices could be overwhelmingly potent if they forged a unified communications strategy. By standing together, they could focus on the real competition—between live performances and audiences choosing to stay at home and watch the telly.
The way in which Nicholas Serota and the ACE board handle the challenges of the next few months will define their long-term future, especially as their decisionmaking process was already coming under increased scrutiny. For example, was there a strategic paper about the provision for opera in England, and how broadly was it discussed? Was the opera community involved? And were outside assessors from the opera business invited to participate? If ACE did ask for external advice from organisations such as Scottish Opera, who have so brilliantly transitioned from a full-time company to a leaner one of supreme excellence, then why have the cuts taken the sector by surprise? Serota says “there needs to be a bit of a rethink about the way in which opera develops in this country.” Can we see the impact statement please which sets out this “rethinking”?
There surely is an opportunity for ACE to redefine themselves. They could, for example, create an internal powerhouse of arts management expertise; people who have worked at the sharp end of the industry with substantial experience of managing regional and national performing arts institutions. Does it not make sense to have broader experience within the organisation, in everything from fundraising to cutting-edge immersive technologies?
I wonder if anyone from ACE has talked to their colleagues in Berlin, where a complex arts ecology—with a plethora of arts companies large and small, as well as three opera houses—manages with direct funding administered by a very small public sector staff. Maybe there is also an argument for ACE to devolve money to different localities throughout the country?
We can all explore ways to share costs regionally, nationally and internationally; to raise more money from partnerships. Both European and American organisations are crying out for this dialogue—and surely the Department for International Trade can help here. ACE have an opportunity to be central to this wider thinking.
Closer collaboration between arts organisations and higher education institutions must also be part of the future. During my last year at ENO, we reached out to University College London (UCL) to explore a partnership between our two organisations. Partnerships between leading universities and leading arts organisations in the UK were patchy at that time, and still are; less so in the USA. Within days, UCL’s provost and his visionary internal development team had brought together 18 brilliant deans of departments, including the famed Bartlett School of Architecture. Ideas emerged from the very first meeting, such as developing affordable, recyclable and lightweight flat-pack scenery for rehearsals. The main thrust of the conversation was how we could work together to tap into new funding streams.
In post-Brexit Britain, the creative industries are one of the few sectors with an untarnished reputation as a significant global player. ENO, which has been singled out for the chop, is not the only arts organisation in the UK that has brought millions of pounds into the sector from international partnerships. ENO has exported its work to more than 40 cities across the world, and its standing as an important innovator has been recognised by opera houses worldwide. When on its best form—and, yes, there have been artistic failures and missteps—it has been distinct from the ROH in the way that Barrie Kosky’s Komische Oper Berlin has differentiated itself artistically and in its audience from the city’s other two opera houses.
ENO has been defined by its work over the last four decades; work that ranges from Minghella’s Madame Butterfly to Philip Glass’s groundbreaking Satyagraha about Mahatma Gandhi; from the pared-down, critically lauded version of La traviata by Peter Konwitchney (one chair and five curtains only) to distinctively theatrical productions such as Peter Grimes by David Alden. None of these productions could be described as “grand opera”, a term used derogatorily by ACE in recent days. They reflect the personality and scope of a great company—and attracted large numbers of first-time opera goers.
Even though the home of the ENO, the London Coliseum, with its vast seating capacity, has proved to be an ongoing challenge to successive managements and ACE alike, many productions—such as the recent hit production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (jointly paid for, incidentally, by the Dutch National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera New York)—have sold out. Let’s also not ignore the fact that the company has reached out to new audiences through its work with The Young Vic, Barbican and Hampstead Theatre, as well as through the recent—and hugely successful—drive-in opera at Crystal Palace.
Then, of course, there are all of the ENO’s other important functions, including as a nursery for the development of British vocal talent. Many of its past performers, such as the tenor Allan Clayton, have become major stars internationally.
The company is an amazing force for good throughout the industry. Their technical and production talent is admired throughout the West End. The thought of 300 people losing their jobs at such short notice is an absolute scandal.
Dennis Marks, the late, former general director of the ENO, had a vision in the mid-1990s of building a 1,500-seat lyric house, truly fit for opera, by selling the Coliseum to the commercial sector. The feasibility study received a lukewarm response from his board, the press and ACE, and the idea didn’t take hold. That was a shame at the time—and remains so.
After all, it is Marks’s sort of thinking that is required now; not impromptu salami-slicing that neglects to recognise the importance of the ENO and other institutions to the UK creative industries—and, indeed, to the UK—as a whole. A good start would be ACE disentangling itself from central government and becoming an open, modern, transparent organisation with the vision to adapt to the many challenges ahead.
