Stage stars blast 'madness' of cuts in arts funding at Evening Standard Theatre Awards

 
Dave Benett

London's top creative talents launched a blistering attack on the Government over its policies on the arts as stars gathered for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

Sir Nicholas Hytner, Danny Boyle, Stephen Fry and Stephen Daldry all made impassioned pleas. National Theatre director Sir Nicholas said cuts in funding were “madness” and he was scathing about government claims that philanthropists would fill the gap. Boyle, the man behind the Olympics opening ceremony, flagged further alarms over plans to exclude dance, music and drama from the new English baccalaureate.

Fry said: “Whatever your politics, you can’t believe that art has to take a stand in the marketplace like potatoes or knives and forks or any other industrial thing.” Daldry urged all the guests to lobby politicians. He said that after the extraordinary celebration of the best of British culture this summer, the arts should not be cut again now.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has outlined a 30 per cent cut in grant aid for the Arts Council from £452 million to £350 million by 2014/15.

Hundreds of theatres, galleries and other arts organisations say they are faced with the prospect of losing some or all of their public funding because of the cuts. Before a star-studded audience at the Savoy Hotel, Sir Nicholas said Britain’s status as a world leader in culture delivered economic riches as well as “the kind of riches that money can’t buy” in reputation and pride.

“It would be madness to cut funding to so visibly a productive a corner of the creative economy for the sake of tiny savings that would be vastly outweighed by the resultant losses,” he said.

He asked: “We’re really going to risk this for the sake of some brand of fiscal orthodoxy that is manifestly contradicted by the economic benefits we deliver day in, day out?”

Sir Nicholas poured scorn on Culture Secretary Maria Miller’s claims that philanthropy will double in coming years, adding: “Private money follows public money.”

He warned that a quarter of regional theatres were lost between 1979 and 1997. “This will happen again if we’re not careful.”

Accepting an award honouring his Olympics team, Boyle said “a true legacy of the opening ceremony” would be for the arts to be recognised in the EBacc. He added: “For a modern economy that doesn’t make cars any more, we’ve got to understand where our growth comes from. Our success is in culture. Anything that gets in the way of that should be fought against.”

The Government today rejected the attacks and said that with increases in National Lottery funding the Arts Council budget will in fact be reduced “by less than five per cent in real terms”. A Whitehall source said any suggestions that the Government does not support the arts are “ridiculous and infantile”. A DCMS spokesman said: “Over the life of this Parliament the Government is investing £2.9 billion in the arts. We have also reformed the National Lottery, increasing the share to the arts. This is a remarkably good deal and part of our comprehensive strategy to set the arts and cultural sectors up for a healthy and resilient future.”

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