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Fareham-based  Blackbox Theatre has been among the first to receive support from a match-funding initiative launched by Solent LEP. The LEP is allocating £100,000 from its local growth fund for micro and small businesses to Crowdfunder’s 'Pay it Forward' campaign, which helps organisations pre-sell their services to ensure continuous cash flow.

Blackbox Theatre received a match fund pledge of £1,000 from the LEP, helping it beat its £2,000 funding target. The money will enable it to entertain audiences through the lockdown by recording The 39 Steps for radio audiences. Theatre director, Chris Hawley said: "This extra funding allows us to keep going as a company during these tricky times, try out something new, employ some local artists during lockdown and carry on entertaining audiences."

One in seven practitioners working in the creative industries have said their finances will run out by the end of April, and half of over 2,000 respondents to a recent survey said they could only last until the end of June. The Creative Industries Federation, which conducted the survey, said: "We cannot allow the UK to lose half of its creative businesses and become a cultural wasteland... we must act, and act fast."

More than 400 high profile figures working in the cultural and creative sectors have co-signed an open letter, drafted by Caroline Norbury, CEO of the Creative Industries Federation and Creative England, calling on Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to provide urgent funding for organisations impacted by the fallout of Covid-19.

A record 12.8 million people around the world watched a free live stream of Phantom of the Opera, 2.5 million of them using the accessible subtitles provided by Stagetext, the UK charity that provides and promotes accessible captions and subtitles for theatres and museums. The production was one of a series of free broadcasts of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals being streamed each week on The Shows Must Go On!, a new YouTube channel set up in a deal involving the composer’s Really Useful Group and Universal. Stagetext will be subtitling the rest of the series to make them fully accessible to d/Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing audiences.

Melanie Sharpe, Chief Executive of Stagetext, hopes the move to provide subtitles is a lasting one. She said: "2.5 million people decided they needed subtitles for the spoken and sung dialogue in Phantom Of The Opera. Not all of these people will be d/Deaf but it proves the demand is there. Subtitles aren’t a luxury, they are a necessity for the 11 million d/Deaf deafened and hard of hearing people in the UK today."

Bosses at England's national museums and galleries are being told by DCMS officials that instead of topping up staff wages with the 20% they lose through the Government's furlough scheme, they should save the money to ease other cost pressures. Unions are urging their members to reject the job retention scheme if employers are intending to cut their wages, and Jo Stevens, Shadow Culture Secretary, has called for an explanation, saying that low-paid workers had to be supported.

As the crisis took hold, 60% were expecting their income to be more than halved, and over one-third were predicting to lose more than 76%.

A Covid-19 impact survey examining artists’ fears immediately before the coronavirus lockdown shows that 82% had already had upcoming work cancelled and 59% had taken the decision to cancel their own work.

4,070 respondents, mainly among the 25,000-strong membership of a-n, the Artists Information Company, responded to its survey, which was open for five days between 19th March and 24th March, the first day of the full lockdown.

During this period, Government guidance to social distance and self-isolate was already in place and concerns about artists’ livelihoods were severe.

The most significant and immediate impact was income reduction – reported by 96%. The majority indicated the main mechanisms through which they earn a living, including exhibitions, selling work and employment which supplements their artistic practice, had been affected, and 65% were losing funding. At that stage, 60% were expecting their income to be down over 50% in 2020, and over one-third were predicting the fall to be more than 76%.

Other outcomes were also expected, with 69% citing an immediate impact on their studio space. Loss of networking opportunities was mentioned by 92%.

Julie Lomax, a-n’s CEO, commented that the research provides a “stark reminder of precarity in the arts”. She said: “Artists have long been asked to navigate and shape-shift through a complex set of structures, relationships and arrangements that are both global and local, often for little to no pay. What starts in the studio as a mostly solo creative practice is reliant on a thriving visual arts sector, audiences, relationships and connections. When these break down so does the ability to sustain creative practice.”

An open letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is asking for seven key points to be addressed in the Government's plans to protect the creative economy. The Federation of Entertainment Unions, which includes Equity, the National Union of Journalists, the Musicians Union, Writers Guild of Great Britain and BECTU, is calling for more support for groups that are in most danger of falling between the gaps in the government's financial compensation package for freelance workers.

These workers include parents and carers; those with less than 50% of income from self-employment; new entrants into the industry who had no completed tax return for last year; and freelances who operate through personal service companies, paying themselves with dividends rather salary. The Unions are also seeking reassurance that compensation payments will not compromise welfare payments to D/deaf and disabled workers.

Parliament's Women and Equalities Committee has launched an Inquiry in response to concerns raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and other organisations that the coronavirus crisis is having a disproportionate impact on some people who have protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. The Committee is asking how people have been affected by the illness or the response to it; if there have been specific impacts on people due to them having a protected characteristic; and whether there may be unforeseen consequences to measures brought in to ease the burden on frontline staff. 

The Government will be reviewing current measures in three weeks’ time and measures in the Coronavirus Bill be voted on again in 6 months’ time, so the Inquiry wants to know what needs to change or improve, which could be acted on in three weeks’ time; and what could be acted on in 6 months’ time. The Committee aims to follow up this work in 12 months’ time to build a more complete picture of how people with protected characteristics have been affected.

Responses should be submitted by 30 April if possible, to enable the Committee to press the Government to reconsider the current measures at the three-week review.