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Scotland's Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop has requested an urgent meeting with her UK Government counterpart to discuss how the end of EU free movement is impacting the arts and cultural sector.

She has called on the Government to negotiate reciprocal visa-free access for artists and performers touring between the UK and EU.

In a letter to the UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, Hyslop argued that "extensive mobility arrangements between the UK and EU are crucial" yet "creative professionals now face significant barriers to these activities, including potential visa and work permit requirements, customs rules, and new rules for haulage, with increased costs and administration".

The letter follows a call with Home Office Minister Kevin Foster in which Hyslop raised similar concerns about the new immigration system and the impact of Brexit on creative professionals wishing to work in the UK.

Hyslop said: “Scotland didn’t vote for Brexit, but Scottish artists and musicians are facing huge barriers to touring and other short-term international work compared to their EU counterparts and will have to understand and comply with 27 different visa regimes. 

“It remains a fact that Europe is the most important international market for many who rely on touring, and action is needed now to support musicians and other creative professionals to tour again, when it is safe to do so."

22 more heritage organisations will benefit from £13.5m in targeted grants to restart regeneration and maintenance projects that were planned before the pandemic and now face delays or increased costs.

The highest award of £3.7m goes to the Black Country Living Museum, which is currently operating as a vaccination centre but prior to the pandemic was planning the single biggest development in its history. A further £1m goes to Brighton Museum’s Royal Estate.

A further £5m will go to 33 independent cinemas, including two major independent companies operating cinemas across England. Reel Cinemas has been awarded £1.5m to support 13 multiplexes and Light Cinemas will benefit from £2.9m to support 10 cinemas where broad film programming and community engagement can restart when cinemas reopen.

The grants are part of a final round of awards from the Government's £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund.

A planned roundtable summit organised by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is raising concerns about the editorial integrity of England's museums and heritage sector.

The meeting on 23 February will bring together heads of 25 heritage bodies in England “to discuss contested heritage and how to put the ‘retain and explain’ policy into practice”.

Those expected to be present will include national museums, arm's length funding bodies and organisations such as the National Trust.

The UK Government has made a series of interventions around heritage issues since the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down in Bristol last June.

In October, culture secretary Oliver Dowden wrote to national museums and heritage bodies advising they should comply with the Government’s position on the issue of contested histories, with the implication that funding could be at risk if they didn't. 

Museums Association director Sharon Heal said: "We should ensure editorial integrity and resist attempts to influence content and interpretation by interest groups, including funders."

She added the association would “unreservedly support” decolonisation initiatives in the sector. 

Glyndebourne has announced plans to stage its 2021 festival. The annual opera festival, which was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19, is scheduled for 20 May to 29 August.

All performances will take place inside the Glyndebourne opera house, with an audience of 600 – 50% of the venue's 1,200 capacity.

The traditional 90-minute interval for refreshments and picnics in the gardens is being extended slightly to allow for staggered entry and exit.

Stephen Langridge, Artistic Director of Glyndebourne, said: "We have been planning for a variety of scenarios to ensure we could adapt the festival, in any way necessary, without lowering our artistic ambition.

"The plan we’re announcing draws on our experience of staging socially-distanced events in 2020 and gives us flexibility to accommodate any restrictions that might be in place this summer."

Mariame Clément, who directs a new production of Rossini’s 'Il turco in Italia' for the festival, said: "It’s been a very difficult time for our industry, trying to find ways to perform that keep everyone safe.

"I have every confidence that together we can create a production that delivers the exceptional artistic standards for which the company is known."

UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin is urging Boris Johnson to include live music in his roadmap out of Covid-19 restrictions.

The call comes ahead of next week's expected Government announcement on plans to reopen the economy.

Njoku-Goodwin said: “We are fast reaching a critical point for the live music industry. If festivals and large events are forced to cancel for another year, many will go under and thousands of jobs are at risk of being lost forever. 

“We are not asking to reopen a moment before it is safe to do so, but if our sector is to survive through this pandemic then we require urgent clarity about the months ahead and some indication of when live music will be able to return." 

Meanwhile, the Music Venue Trust welcomed Johnson's recent suggestion that rapid Covid-19 tests could enable nightclubs and theatres to reopen.

CEO Mark Davyd said the organisation “has already created the possibility of two pilot sites to host events featuring rapid testing and a range of other mitigation measures intended to deliver live music in a safe setting”. 

He said the organisation has been in discussion with the government since July around issues associated with rapid testing and other forms of "health passporting". 

Think tank Out To Perform and the Coalition for Open Air Theatre have sent an open letter to Culture Secretary State Oliver Dowden asking for the small-scale outdoor performing arts to be allowed to lead the sector’s return to live performance.  

As the rapid dispersal of the virus in the open air makes this a Covid-safer environment than indoor auditoria, the two organisations and many high profile industry professionals are calling on the government to let this segment of the performing arts, which has the  lowest risk of virus transmission, lead the national cultural revival and reopen after lockdown ends.

Whilst the media attention focuses on the major summer festivals, the scale, style and long lead-times of these events makes it unlikely that they can take place: but the letter points out that smaller scale and more local outdoor events could still go ahead.

It envisages that events could have a capacity of around 500 people and controlled seating, where social distancing could be most easily managed between household bubbles.
Signatories to the letter are hoping to engage in a dialogue with the government to put plans in place for this to happen.

The Government’s policy of allowing outdoor performances to restart in July 2020 following the first lockdown is estimated to have enabled 500,000 people able to attend small-scale events, generating around £7m in revenue.

Data from Indigo Audience research suggests people will be more prepared to attend outdoor performances in all seasons and weather than in previous years due to cultural starvation.  

A podcast by two accessible theatre companies is aiming to inspire confidence among arts professionals that they can build accessibility into their own work and practices, and that this can enhance the work of all theatre makers, not just those already making accessible theatre.

The Green Room, a 12-part video series described as “story-led, upbeat and entertaining”, features established and emerging artists, directors, writers, casting directors and creative enablers with a range of careers and experiences. Through the videos, their creators DH Ensemble and Hot Coals Productions – working together as Strive Collective – address perceptions that being accessible is expensive and difficult. By sharing these experiences they hope to empower all theatre-makers to be more confident integrating access in their work.

Clare-Louise English, co-founder of Hot Coals Productions, said: “It’s not about making your organisation more welcoming to a particular audience group; it’s repositioning access as an artistic choice, right at the start. It makes the work more exciting.”