A GOOD NIGHT OUT reading group - selections for 10 May 2020

Extract from p.13 of John McGrath’s amazing book A Good Night Out (1981):

For more McGrath, here’s a PDF of the preceding section [pp.9-13]:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dk3rbdurd4wBqoqhtG-mc98v_leJ9kWW/view?usp=sharing

Two extracts on the historical development of London-centricity in the UK economy, from Owen Hatherley’s article ‘The Feebleness of the Northern Powerhouse’ (2016):

Extract 1 (pp.15-16):

"Although London has always been dominant, the U.K. in the 19th and early 20th centuries had some more balance given the strength of its industrial north, which encompassed highly skilled industries such as steel in Sheffield and shipbuilding in Newcastle, along with textiles in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, and coal mining throughout the north (and with other major centers around Birmingham, South Wales, and Glasgow). Deindustrialization since the 1970s has shifted both political and economic power decisively in London’s favor. According to the geographer Danny Dorling, Britain has the sharpest differences between regions of any European Union country, with the north-south divide greater than the gap between southern and northern Italy or West and East Germany. [...]

This polarization has happened in tandem with an unprecedented devolution in the United Kingdom, which has given Wales, Northern Ireland, and especially Scotland extensive new powers and parliaments. Of course, this has done little to shake the endemic inequality of, say, Glasgow, where life expectancies in the East End are over 20 years lower than in the West End. This suggests that regional decentralization doesn’t reduce inequality nearly as much as its advocates might hope, a lesson that may have been lost on the civic boosters of Greater Manchester.

The idea of trying to lure affluent incomers and professionals to the depopulating north is not new. From 1997 to 2010, under the New Labour governments, many of these cities attracted investment in cultural facilities, such as the Sage concert hall and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead; Bridgewater Hall in Manchester; the Imperial War Museum North in Trafford; the Lowry in Salford, Greater Manchester; the Deep (an aquarium) and Hull Truck Theatre in Hull; and the Middlesbrough Institute for Modern Art, among others. The arts budgets that sustained these attempts at conjuring the so-called Bilbao effect have been cut heavily under the coalition and Conservative governments since 2010. Some of the best universities in the country are in the north, such as in Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, and Durham, and many students stay on there after graduating. Yet with education cuts under the Conservative-Liberal coalition government and the attendant tripling of tuition fees, these areas are increasingly becoming wealthy enclaves within impoverished cities."

Extract 2 (p.17):

"The only city in the area that attracts much commuting from outside of its direct metro area is Manchester, already by far the most successful city in shifting from industry to London-style forms of employment such as media, financial services, and property development. The worry of many of the north’s smaller cities, like Bradford or Preston, or even the once powerful but now depopulated and impoverished Liverpool, is that the Northern Powerhouse will make them effectively commuter towns for a Mancunian Powerhouse."

Full article PDF here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z_Hayw4lL_9TnwEcTh0-JZwTOxrf2OGB/view?usp=sharing

Extract from David Jubb’s blogpost ‘time to change’ (25 April 2020) on the need for a national network of community venues in the wake of Covid-19: 

“Over the next few years venues and production companies will find it difficult to operate in any kind of financially sustainable way. We have a choice to make as to whether we do everything we can to sustain these giants of the sector; or whether we take opportunities as they come to invest more public funds directly with artists and communities. I think we should do the latter because we are much more likely to support creativity and innovation that reaches inside communities in this moment. This is a time when the most important thing we can do is to support communities and help everyone to play their part in imagining the future. By investing more directly in artists and communities we would be more likely to address the needs of communities during the time of COVID-19. This would include getting behind the people who are working to tackle the current crisis: tangible community projects; devising creative solutions; providing opportunities for reflection and hope.

Directing more regular funding at artists and communities would be a more positive approach in the short- and long-term; so there are salaried artists and community members who lead our sector across the country. In return for their funding they could be required to form and lead regional and national networks; modern-day creative guilds and unions; designed to help share learning, innovative approaches and exciting new projects across the country. We could then provide small pots of funding to buildings across the country to contribute to their core running costs on the proviso that they act as creative hubs, serving their communities in multiple ways. No longer would these buildings be producing houses which control the direction and narrative of the cultural sector, they would be serving houses that support the creativity of their community. [...] If we take this approach I think we would see a growth in the number of participation specialists who start to lead our cultural buildings, rather than a predominance of those with a primary passion for production. A strong Arts Council would be needed to lead this model; and to provide project funds which could be accessed by artists and communities to create new work, often in partnership with the national network of community venues.”

Full blogpost here: https://davidjubb.blog/2020/04/25/time-to-change/