News

Former Director of the National Theatre Sir Richard Eyre has said swapping the genders of characters in the playwright’s classics ruins the flow of his work. Eyre is also concerned that iambic pentameter is not being taught in schools.

Richard Demarco, a prominent Scottish arts figure and co-founder of the Traverse Theatre, said while Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe lifted Scotland's spirits following the second world war, they now merely served to “reassure 2,000 stand-up comics they have a future”.

Researchers monitoring the progress of a Youth Music programme linking community music organisations with school music departments has concluded that students are being "taught in a way that does not connect with the music they’re actually interested in".  Evidence that children’s experience of music at school is “often disconnected from their musical lives” outside the lessons has prompted Youth Music CEO Matt Griffiths to write an open letter to Education Minister Nick Gibb, calling for a revised curriculum for teaching music.

450 items have been sold from the County Council's School Loan Collection as the service had become "less relevant to the evolving curriculum". The Council says it has insufficent resources to properly conserve the pieces in storage, and will be spending the money raised on improving the condition and public visibility of the nationally significant sculptures it still holds.

Leading playwright and theatre maker David Leddy is planning to "stop working in theatre and pursue a new career" after the Glasgow-based theatre company Fire Exit closes next month. The organisation was one of 20 to lose regular funding from Creative Scotland in its controversial funding shake-up last year. 

Curious Directive, which focuses on science-led theatre, has a new permanent base in a 15th century church in central Norwich. The venue will include spaces for administration and rehearsals that will be rented out to grassroots theatre makers, as well as a ‘tech library’, providing technology used in the company’s productions for free. Curious Directive also wants to create a workshop for companies to build sets.

The Museum of Fine Arts has revoked the membership of two visitors who were accused of making racist remarks to middle school students visiting the venue. The Principal of the school also told the museum that one of its staff told students “no food, no drink and no watermelon”, and that he heard reports of security guards following his students. The museum says it is unable to confirm or deny beyond doubt what was said, and that the movement of the guards as they took and returned from breaks may have led the students feeling followed – but it has promised to change its protocols for security staff.