The Valley of Ignorance

I am one of the lucky ones.  At the end of March I was writing for/working with The Lyceum, Perth Rep, the Citz, the National Theatre of Scotland and Raw Material Arts on four different projects that ALL connect to each other.   I have also worked with Dundee Rep, the Traverse, the Playwrights’ Studio and Oran Mor in the last 12 months. So I have an immediate and ongoing connection with them all, but then so does almost everyone I know who works as a freelancer…actors, musicians, directors, designers...Again, like all of them, I know absolutely nothing about what comes next in the industry I work in even now, and have done for thirty six years.  So while I feel very much involved with what happens to any and each of them, while they constitute a unity in my working life, there is, as far as I know, as yet no common plan for performing arts in Scotland to get through the consequences of the pandemic, let alone emerge healthily on the other side. I know that the Federation of

First, don’t get too excited. This is money that is replacing lost income…not a windfall. It’s primary use, as with the Scottish Government’s ten million announced on Friday, (which is part of this total) is supporting the infrastructure of the entire heritage and museum sectors as well as performing arts venues.   This is safe guarding already existing "national treasures" as the Minister put it. And quieten that Calvinist suspicion and guilt. Of COURSE it’s at least in part a carve up (Andrew Lloyd Webber called Culture Minister Oliver Dowden by his Christian name in a press statement) But across the board, this is only to tide us over till the new financial year. This is money that has already, morally speaking, been earned. What it is not, and what indeed seems to have rapidly suppressed and removed from the agenda, is a possibility for change. On the other hand, a concrete lobbying job about real and not just wished for money can now be undertaken to ensure