Arts funding

Nottingham Castle will reopen to the public after plans were formally approved by the city council.

The museum and heritage site closed last November due to the collapse of the charitable trust that ran it. It had been open for just 18 months following a £31m redevelopment.

Members of Nottingham City Council's executive board backed a strategy that will see the city centre site open to the public from May. However, the council is yet to decide whether the site will be run by its own museum and gallery service, by an external provider, or in partnership.

Pavlos Kotsonis, the council’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Planning, said: “This is a site which belongs to the whole of Nottingham and I’m hopeful that our approach, which draws on our successful experience of running Wollaton and Newstead, will first and foremost meet with local approval.

“I have no doubt that Nottingham Castle can also become a destination of national and international importance, just as we had envisaged when the £31m of improvements were completed.”

Council Leader David Mellen reportedly told the board: “We needed to get this open as quickly as we can, and we have done that now.” 

Most chorus members at the English National Opera (ENO) will be forced to leave their jobs with the company if it relocates outside London, a survey has found.

Three-quarters of the chorus, which is made up of 34 permanent employees and three on contracts, responded to a survey put out by performers' union Equity.

The findings, reported by the Guardian, show that 82.1% said they would have to leave their jobs if ENO relocated full-time or for the majority of time outside London, citing ties including children at school, caring responsibilities, and partners with jobs in the capital.

Only 21.4% said they would be able to move out of London part-time if ENO split its time between the Coliseum and another city. In this scenario, 75% said they would have to leave their jobs at ENO, with six in 10 saying they would leave the profession altogether.

Paul W Fleming, Equity’s General Secretary, said: “By pulling the rug from under the ENO, Arts Council England is asking a long-established workforce to upend their whole lives, for a vague promise of potential work, written in the sand.

“This highly skilled, diverse and world renowned chorus is expected to suddenly move to an unknown place, for an unknown reason by the Arts Council, who seem to have made this baffling decision with zero thought for its consequences for the workforce, the audience and the ability of people across the UK to access opera.”

A spokesperson for ENO said: “The ENO has made clear that to help support the government’s and ACE’s levelling up agenda we should sustain our base at the London Coliseum while increasing our activity out of London.

“At a proper funding level this would allow us to maintain our world-class chorus and orchestra and we continue to ask ACE [and the government] to recognise this to protect the livelihoods of this brilliantly talented group of people.”

Three historic railway arches in Manchester are to be transformed into new training and rehearshal spaces for artists.

The £3.7m project is being funded with £2.3m from the government's Levelling Up fund, £900,000 from Manchester City Council and £500,000 from nearby arts venue HOME, which will operate the spaces when they open in May next year.

HOME director Dave Moutrey said the arches "will allow us to grow the work that we do with artists in the North West, across theatre, film, visual art and digital works".

The scheme is part of the council's Culture In The City project, which it secured nearly £20m of Levelling Up funding for.

Council leader Bev Craig said: "These arches are part of our heritage which have sat unloved and underused for many years. 

"This scheme is bringing them back to life with a very modern purpose – complementing the thriving cultural economy in our city."

Re-Live Cardiff, a theatre company working exclusively with veterans and the elderly, has been selected as the main winner of the annual Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Award for Civic Arts Organisations.

The organisation was awarded £100,000 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which has been running its award for outstanding community engagement work for three years.

Two further prizes of £25,000 each were awarded to Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, for its work with asylum seekers and women, and to People United, a Canterbury-based charity working with young refugees.

“The organisations we chose to receive this year’s award stood out for us because of the ways in which they are pioneering and embedding new ways of co-creating with their communities, putting people at the heart of their thinking,” said chair of the panel Baroness Deborah Bull.

Re-Live Cardiff helps veterans, the elderly and people with dementia to write and perform their stories as plays, as well as offering training for health and social care workers.

“We're so thrilled to have this recognition. This work has transformed lives amongst underrepresented communities across Wales,” said Karin Diamond, Re-Live’s Artistic Director.

“Now we have the potential to expand our work, which has already begun to grow internationally, shape policy and improve lives in Wales and beyond,” she added.

Golden Thread Gallery worked with local organisations to produce “Welcome to Belfast” information packs in Arabic and Farsi to help migrant women integrate in Northern Ireland, as well as creating art packs for child refugees.

“We have big plans for the future and will be creating a Process room for communities to engage with our work, as well as developing new connections with schools and groups,” said Sarah McAvera, the gallery’s Deputy Director.

People United’s “Future of Care” programme has collaborated with Kent Refugee Action Network to help young refugees and asylum seekers express themselves through painting.

“Having the resources to continue our collaboration, enabling young refugees and asylum seekers to use art to reflect on and articulate their experiences, is so exciting”, said Janice McGuinness, CEO of People United.

The National Theatre says it is planning to reduce its activity over the next four years “in order to ensure financial stability”.

The theatre attributed the decision to several factors including inflation, rising energy costs, a drop in audience levels and a 5% cut to its Arts Council England funding, equivalent to £850,000 per annum.

Its accounts for the year ending March 2022 show total income stands at £80.8m, up from £56.3m last year, but down on pre-pandemic figures which were in excess of £100m.

Expenditure for the financial year 2021/22 came to £80.1m, leaving a surplus of £700,000.

Audience figures remained 21% down on pre-pandemic attendance, while donations were down £3.1m on the previous year. 

Staff numbers also decreased by nearly 12%, from 759 to 669, following redundancies undertaken as part of the theatre’s Covid Recovery Plan.

A statement from the accounts reads: “We are reviewing our four-year plan and have identified opportunities with supporting investment to set more growth targets for digital income streams, commercial exploitation of our products, trading net revenue and philanthropic support.”

“At the same time, we are carrying out a strategic review to hone our key aims and objectives.”

The theatre adds it remains confident about its future, but warns "these are very challenging times for us, the cultural sector and society in general”.