A New Deal for Scottish Theatre needs New Management

CULTURE, TOURISM, EUROPE AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

INQUIRY ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON SCOTLAND’S CULTURE AND TOURISM SECTORS

SUBMISSION FROM PETER ARNOTT, PLAYWRIGHT

I want to try to move past the immediate and even medium term impacts of the Virus on, in particular, the performing arts, to more prescriptive ideas about the way forward

We are under no illusion that anyone can flick a switch between emergency lockdown and “back to normal.”  There will be many Stages of Recovery from Convalescence to The New Normal,  which I, like others, have explored elsewhere. Each of these will make its own as yet unpredictable demands and present limited but tangible opportunities. Practitioners will need imaginative responses to each.  So will management at the level of companies and funders which will in turn demand the active participation of local and national government. What I want to argue here and now is that NONE of these stages of recovery, up until and including “the new normal” can realistically expect to subsist on the same administrative and fiscal basis as the industry did just a few weeks ago. That the "joined up thinking" that each Stage of Recovery demands will in turn demand a re-thinking and reshaping of each and every one of these "stakeholder relationships."

My argument is that the sector and its supporters need to start now by looking at the desired result of the whole process perhaps years from now: that we envision what kind of "new normal" we want and what are the values that we want to inform it. That we work backwards from that future to where we are now...and ask how do we get from here to where we want to be.

The funding and administrative structure that was put in place for Public Support of the Arts in the late 1940s still underlies the arrangements in place today.  My argument is that “the public good” may not be best served in the future by the maintenance of that model. In brief, that paradigm was characterised, similarly to many other public services, by altering the financial means of support for already existing charitable trusts and local authorities. It may be that the broadest interests of the broadest audience and participation in artistic practice 70 years later is still best served by maintaining “institution centred” fiscal and administrative structures, but the position paper adopted by the Scottish Parliament in December 2019, well before the pandemic, already argues otherwise.

The economic circumstances we will inherit from the coronavirus, (over and above the necessary restrictions on audiences, practitioners and participants, especially in the performing arts while the pandemic is of live concern to industry and audiences alike), can only be glimpsed at present, but is also likely to make demands upon practitioners that the current structures are ill equipped to fulfil.

In the current context of the pandemic, as well as in its aftermath, it seems self- evident to me that we need to arrive at a consensus NOW as to what public good the arts have served in the past, and might serve in the future.  That in exchange for support through the immediate crisis first, and then in the new economic and social context which will emerge, we need to arrive at a new deal for the publically supported arts in Scotland.  I do not think that waiting around for government to bail us out so we can go on exactly as we did before is an option for the short, medium or longer term. We must be ready to at least contemplate the possibility that the economics and organisation of arts provision will compel previously unthinkable thoughts, potentially some quite radical and painful ones, about doing things differently in order to serve progressive values.

Make no mistake, something of a Live Entertainment Sector is going to come along.  But to borrow an analogy from Hollywood, if we don't want Mr Potter to end up owning and running the town of Bedford Falls, then we with investments in the Bailey Building and Loan had better be brave and we'd better be smart. Either Scottish Theatre is run according to politically agreed values of the public good, or it will end up being a mere subsidiary of already existing commercial interests.  And as for the conditions of decency that we were already struggling to protect in our pay and conditions of work, we will be able to wave those goodbye along with any other than the most tokenistic and cynical regard for the public service values that I hope we still cherish.

There have already been instances of new and progressive thinking ; that artists should be individually supported at different stages of their careers by an expanded system of residencies and bursaries in recognition of both their potential and actual contributions ; ( I would argue that recognition needs to be given too to contributions in the past and to the potential for mentoring and role modelling);  that regional hubs rather than charitable trusts become the default funding and managerial base for arts activities in different geographical areas; that a properly funded touring network with an annual festival to select and fund tours of existing projects be founded in order to lead an expansion and extension of performance and participation with a specific focus on locales of social deprivation and geographical (and social) isolation; that an integrated arts strategy work in tandem with the health service, the education service, services for the physically and mentally challenged, social services for the elderly and other special needs groups. 

There is no shortage of ideas around which a progressive set of values and practices might not be constructed. There is enormous scope for a strategically, nationally focussed arts strategy that can expand and integrate arts activity throughout Scottish life, and be projected outward to the world.

But can such an ambition co-exist with competing charitable trusts who are applying to a single money pot?  With those institutions, whose primary interest is necessarily their own perpetuation, competing with individuals as well as each other? Is a relationship with each and every theatre board (for example) to be built into new conditions of funding for every project and every appointment? Or do we need to look at a much more directed model…of arts provision as a public good that can and must be argued about, given sets of priorities, set goals that are themselves going to be subject to debate?

The “arms length” relationship of government to arts provision is already a tangled and not entirely convincing web of relationships.  Might it not be time to jettison pretence, and sometimes hypocrisy, along with an organizational model for the arts that emerged just after the Second World War?  Might not the management of the course and the aftermath of the CoronaVirus crisis demand that we think fundamentally about what good we are…all over again? 

I do not believe that the regional and social challenges of integrated arts participation is beyond the wit of a dedicated team of people to put together, repairing, for example, the anomaly of half of the cultural spend in Scotland being through untouchable and unreformable National Companies while the other half is more or less a free for all competition to see who is the best at ticking boxes on application forms. 

My immediate recommendation then, is for such a future focussed "commission" to be created and supported by the Scottish Government, in cooperation with the Federation of Scottish Theatre as our currently best placed industry wide organisation.

This commission must start, I think, with an honest confession that the system was already broken.  The model of the old Scottish Arts Council has been eroding in esteem and actuality for fifteen years or more. Lottery funding has more or less entirely taken over as a financial resource from direct taxation, and theatres (for example) make a lot bigger proportion of their income at the box office than they used to. (This being why it is the most successful theatres in box office terms that have been hardest hit by closure and are most challenged by the demands of social distancing). A managerial structure for the theatre, at least, that was already more or less moribund has been delivered a coup de grace. It seems to me to be an exercise in futility to attempt to breathe life into a corpse.

Much I believe, better to consider the needs of the population as a whole for a dynamic and participatory model of the arts at EVERY stage of recovery that can challenge the world as well as ourselves, and to consider those needs from the ground up. I suggest the establishment of a grown up and expert commission that can be entrusted with making hard choices, art form by art form, on the basis of a debated and agreed set of values.  That in three to five years we look to have a New Deal for the arts in Scotland that is actively supported by the taxpayers and lottery players as well as the artists and audiences of Scotland not as an adjunct to the good life of the few, but of the richer, better life of the nation as a whole.

To effect a better future, or anything resembling one, we need to make a continuous public and political case for the performing arts as a public good.  I do not believe we can do that unless we think, talk and act collectively as soon as is humanly possible.