TAITMAIL The cost of joy
Could this have been true? The story goes that when Keir Starmer recently rang Boris Johnson to ask for theatres to be reopened he got the usual non-committal response of “as soon as we safely can”. But at the end of the call Johnson didn’t hang up properly, and the unmistakable voice of his Senior Adviser could be heard exclaiming: “The last people we’re going to allow back to work is those fucking dancers!”
Anti-racist rallying cry by new Tara Arts head
Tara Arts, the country’s first BAME theatre company, has announced Abdul Shayek as its new artistic director and joint-CEO who has pledged himself and the company to renewed combating of racism and racial inequality in the light of the Black Lives Matter campaign.
Balshaw joins Mendoza arts crisis panel
Tate director Maria Balshaw (pictured here by Bloomberg) has been named today as a member of the expert panel exploring the impact of the Covid pandemic on the arts and their response.
THE WORD Collaboration – the catalyst to save culture
The Catalyst Network is a gathering of entrepreneurial, strategic and operational expertise from across the creative industries that meets regularly to discuss strategic challenges faced by the arts. Kate Rolfe (pictured), the co-chair of the latest Catalyst Thinks discussion, reports on its latest exchanges
Atomic bombings to be marked – in Piccadilly
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago this week are to be marked by a digital work of public art.
Bugsy Malone’s Alan Parker dies
Alan Parker, the film director, writer and producer who brought such classics as Bugsy Malone, Mississippi Burning and Angela’s Ashes to the screen, died today aged 76.
ATG to lay off 1,200
Ambassador Theatre Group, the UK’s largest theatre operator, is to lay of 1,200 casual staff.
THE ART OF PHOTOJOURNALISM Image of the month
Skegness Beach, summer of 1999, by Tom Pilston
Alan Sparrow introduces this month’s image
THE END reaches the Fourth Plinth
A new public sculpture, THE END by Heather Philipson, was today unveiled on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in central London.
1,200 National Trust staff face job loss
The National Trust today told staff their jobs may have to go as part of a £100m savings package.
Slavery beneficiary’s statue stays
The statue of a 17th century trading magnate whose fortune partly came from forced labour and the trading of slaves is to remain.
£500m for film production, and how the £1.57bn arts recovery fund will be shared out
The government has launched a £500m scheme for save TV and film production, effectively becoming the industry's insurer.
Southbank’s plea for help with £21m debt
The Southbank Centre, which has said it may have to cut 400 jobs, has appealed to the government for help with a “crippling” £21m debt exacerbated by the Covid-19 lockdown.
Quentin Blake’s House of Illustration in £8m move
The House of Illustration, the UK’s only gallery devoted to illustration and graphics founded by the illustrator Sir Quentin Blake in 2014, is to make a new home in a listed building next to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Islington.
Coventry – on the move for 2021
Coventry has chosen its brand and logo for its year as the UK City of Culture in 2021.
Mendes raises £1.6m for theatre artists
The fund set up by Oscar-winning film and theatre director Sir Sam Mendes to help theatre workers struggling in the lockdown has raised £1.6m in just three weeks.
THE WORD Small town boy
By Patrick Kelly, AI’s northern editor
This column is not a particular fan of John Whittingdale, the culture minister and one-time culture secretary, whose fixation with the BBC and its alleged “leftwing” bias distorted his blessedly brief time as government culture supremo.
Art Fund doubles museums prize to lure visitors back
The Art Fund is to double the prize money for the Museum of the Year Award this time to £200,000 as part of a campaign for museums as they reopen following the pandemic lockdown.
£1.57bn arts rescue ‘too late and too slow’
In a damning judgement of the government’s response to rescuing the creative sector from lockdown calamity, the culture, media and support select committee has said the £1.57bn arts rescue fund has come too late and too slow.
MY STORY David Glass, artistic director of the David Glass Ensemble
The David Glass Ensemble was founded in 1990 as an international theatre company engagied with the changing world through tough productions, often written by David Glass himself and with new takes on Shakespeare and even Dickens. As a pioneer of physical theatre the performer, director and playwright is often said by other theatre makers to be a defining force in world drama.
GOOD PRACTICE GUIDE How to go to the theatre
Indoor performances can start again from August 1, but with social distancing still in place how will theatres and concert halls work?
Indoor performances back – at a distance
Live indoor performances can resume from August 1, but with social distancing, Boris Johnson said today.
Jerwood’s search for risk-takers relaunched
The Jerwood Art Fund Makers Open, the competition for risk-taking artists that allows them time and money to experiment, has been relaunched with a new Art Fund partnership.
TAITMAIL Freeflow on South Ken's sunlit uplands
When I worked in the V&A two or three curatorial generations ago the best day of the week for colleagues was Friday, the day the museum was closed. No public getting in the way of research, cleaning, labelling, no noise, and in the best of all possible museological worlds it would be permanently closed to non-staff.
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