Charlotte Higgins explores the post-cuts landscape in Newcastle's cultural sector.
“We live in an age of cuts … We are a working-class town, that’s our strength – and in the current climate, our weakness.” So said the deputy leader of the council as he addressed the press conference. His task is to decide how and where to save £64m: Sure Start, the museum, libraries, disabled care, street lighting ...
This is not a scene from real life but from Hope, Jack Thorne’s close-to-the-bone play about local-authority cuts, which recently opened at the Royal Court in London. But Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle upon Tyne council, sounded uncannily like the drama’s main character when we met in his grand, 1960s panelled office in the city’s Civic Centre – its bold modernist architecture a remnant of a more confident age, before cuts of 44% from central government sent a chilly blast through its elegant courtyards... Keep reading on The Guardian
“We live in an age of cuts … We are a working-class town, that’s our strength – and in the current climate, our weakness.” So said the deputy leader of the council as he addressed the press conference. His task is to decide how and where to save £64m: Sure Start, the museum, libraries, disabled care, street lighting ...
This is not a scene from real life but from Hope, Jack Thorne’s close-to-the-bone play about local-authority cuts, which recently opened at the Royal Court in London. But Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle upon Tyne council, sounded uncannily like the drama’s main character when we met in his grand, 1960s panelled office in the city’s Civic Centre – its bold modernist architecture a remnant of a more confident age, before cuts of 44% from central government sent a chilly blast through its elegant courtyards... Keep reading on The Guardian