The high ‘subsidy per seat’ that cost Out of Joint its funding
Max Stafford-Clark explains the long-lasting impact of Arts Council England’s last round of funding cuts on the theatre company Out of Joint, in an extract from his new book ‘Journal of the Plague Year’.
On 30 March 2011, Arts Council England announced a round of funding cuts that were to have a deep and long-lasting effect on a number of theatre companies – my own company, Out of Joint, among them. We were shocked and dismayed to learn that our annual funding would be reduced by more than £99,432. Together with the 10% cut suffered by all institutions the previous year, the total loss amounted to nearly £130,000. In other words, we were to lose 20% of our total funding. As I write, we are still struggling to put together a programme that minimises these traumatic effects.
Everyone knew hard times were coming to the theatre. The country was in an economic crisis and cuts in theatre grants had been widely predicted. The Conservative economic line at the time – that austerity was the way out of recession and that spending should be reduced across the board – had its most profound effects on welfare, healthcare, housing and the pillars of our society, but the arts were to be slashed as well. Arguments that the theatre industry as a whole made a net profit for the UK fell on deaf ears – it was to be hair shirts and pinched pennies all round. My wife, Stella Feehily, has recently written a play about the NHS, This May Hurt a Bit, and while researching the project we met Ken Clarke, former Conservative minister for health. He is the worst kind of Tory: personable, witty, charming and rather wise. At the end of our meeting we were chatting casually and I asked him what was going to happen to the theatre: "You're going to be cut," he said with a huge grin. "Yes, you're certainly going to be cut."
On 30 March 2011, Arts Council England announced a round of funding cuts that were to have a deep and long-lasting effect on a number of theatre companies – my own company, Out of Joint, among them. We were shocked and dismayed to learn that our annual funding would be reduced by more than £99,432. Together with the 10% cut suffered by all institutions the previous year, the total loss amounted to nearly £130,000. In other words, we were to lose 20% of our total funding. As I write, we are still struggling to put together a programme that minimises these traumatic effects.
Everyone knew hard times were coming to the theatre. The country was in an economic crisis and cuts in theatre grants had been widely predicted. The Conservative economic line at the time – that austerity was the way out of recession and that spending should be reduced across the board – had its most profound effects on welfare, healthcare, housing and the pillars of our society, but the arts were to be slashed as well. Arguments that the theatre industry as a whole made a net profit for the UK fell on deaf ears – it was to be hair shirts and pinched pennies all round. My wife, Stella Feehily, has recently written a play about the NHS, This May Hurt a Bit, and while researching the project we met Ken Clarke, former Conservative minister for health. He is the worst kind of Tory: personable, witty, charming and rather wise. At the end of our meeting we were chatting casually and I asked him what was going to happen to the theatre: "You're going to be cut," he said with a huge grin. "Yes, you're certainly going to be cut."