News

Creative Scotland has opened applications to its Radical Care Fund, a £75,000 project aiming to improve working conditions for creatives with caregiving responsibilities.

Grants of between £3,000 and £15,000 are available to creative organisations and businesses looking to support these creatives.

Creative Scotland’s Ashley Smith-Hammond says the fund will address challenges including unsocial working hours, fluctuating patterns of work and higher than average levels of freelancing.

“All of these elements combine to create barriers for people working in the arts, screen and creative industries to manage work and care responsibilities. We hope that this fund will help to rethink fair working systems and improve peoples’ work/life balance.” 

Applications close on 26 November, with between five and fifteen projects to be chosen for funding in the week commencing 20 December.

Derbyshire County Council has set aside £1m to boost the county's culture and creative industries.

The money, which comes from the council’s Covid-19 Recovery Fund, will be put towards a series of initiatives drawn up with the county’s Culture, Heritage and Tourism Board.

Council leader Barry Lewis said the funding will support businesses which contribute to the “vibrancy and vitality” of the county.

“The impact of Covid-19 has been devastating to Derbyshire’s creative and cultural economy, with those businesses that rely on attracting audiences and visitors some of the very last to return to normal operation.”

The announcement follows Derby's place on the longlist for UK City of Culture 2025, revealed last month.

Opera house Glyndebourne is set to launch an on-demand streaming service, Glyndebourne Encore, next month.

The service will offer access to Glyndebourne’s back-catalogue and future filmed productions, alongside additional insights and interviews about a chosen opera each month.

Artistic Director Stephen Langridge says Glyndebourne Encore is a response to audience demand realised after its digital festival, hosted last year due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The company says it will continue offering regular, limited-period, free streams alongside the service.

Glyndebourne Encore will launch with 15 filmed titles available from 1 December. An annual subscription will cost £79.99, or £59.99 for Glyndebourne members.

Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the British Council have extended their partnership to 2024.

Now in their tenth year of working together, the two bodies aim to develop Northern Ireland’s arts sector internationally.

The partnership does this by supporting international showcases and running an annual £50,000 Artist Development Fund.

British Council Arts Director, Skinder Hundal, says the two organisations have mapped out a clear framework for continued international cultural dialogue and exchange.

“We are delighted to continue our partnership. Together over the past nine years, we have increased the number of cultural connections between Northern Ireland and the rest of the world, developing vital long-term partnerships.”

The Theatre Artists Fund has distributed grants of £500 to 1,003 theatre freelance workers in its latest wave of funding aimed at those working in the performing arts and facing financial hardship.

It says the £500,000 total grant, its sixth round of funding, was made possible after a donation from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

Since July 2020, the Fund has raised £7.8m in donations from over 3,000 individuals, foundations and businesses. 

To date, 8,294 grants have been delivered to freelancers across 38 performing arts professions.

“Although theatres around the UK can now open to full audiences, uncertainty and financial instability remain a significant issue for the thousands of freelance theatre workers in the UK, and there is still a high demand for Theatre Artists Fund support,” the fund says.

A report into worldwide royalties estimates collections in music, visual arts, drama and literature could decline by up to 35% this year.

The annual Global Collections Report, published by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), cites Covid-19 as the reason for the decline.

The report also shows the US to have the highest market share of royalty collections, followed by France, Japan and Germany.

The UK ranks fifth, with a market share of 8.4%. Its year-on-year growth in collections is 12.3%, meaning the UK is currently outperforming the global market.

CISAC Director General Gadi Oron attributed the UK's growth in royalty collections to copyright collective PRS for Music’s investment in systems and networks.

"It’s the UK talent, it’s the fact that collections around the world are improving and more royalties are repatriated."

Vandals have graffitied Brighton Hippodrome the day after the front of the building was redecorated.

Restoring the disused Grade II listed theatre has been an ongoing project since 2015.

The redevelopment includes new rehearsal and performance spaces, a terrace, food and drink areas, roof repairs and the new facade.

Developers are looking to prosecute the vandals and say they will monitor CCTV closely.

"It’s extremely depressing when, after painstakingly refurbishing and redecorating the front elevation, a tagger randomly daubs graffiti all over it by the very next day," a spokesperson for Matsim Properties said.

A new visitor attraction representing little-known Anglo-Saxon history will open in Northumberland next autumn.

Ad Gefrin will recreate the archeaological site of Gefrin, or Yeavering - a summer palace to 7th Century kings and queens - as an immersive experience.

The site will include a bar, gift shop, and the county's first legal whisky distillery in 200 years.

The £10.4m project's Head of Operations Dr Chris Ferguson said it will present the story of the "golden age of Northumbria".

"Yeavering is a Northumbrian royal palace counterpart to the ship burials at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia and was as richly decorated and significant a place, if not more so.

"I hope that by bringing to life the stories of the people that lived at Yeavering we will showcase one of the most significant archaeological sites in the British Isles."