How many arts organisations, especially Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs), and even more especially those which have recently ceased to be RFOs, will read about Arts Council England’s (ACE) plan to increase public engagement in the arts (see p1) with a mounting sense of déjà vu? There’s an army of arts managers out there who are already beavering away behind the scenes to create significant and lasting change, usually by working hard to involve ‘stakeholders’ – artists, staff, audience and funding partners. The idea that public engagement can be measured and reported on is not new – as our recent in-depth coverage shows (AP166, AP173 and AP175). ACE’s idea to include it in funding agreements does not come as a shock. The actual document has sneaked out a little earlier than intended, and it is to be hoped that it will be ‘tweaked’ before its official publication in the autumn. ACE has insisted to AP that it’s not a charter for public interference in artistic policy: in that case they have to think about some of the wording. Nothing would put up the backs of the artistic community as quickly as the idea that they should change what they do to appeal to all. This opens up a long-festering can of worms. ACE wants people to feel the arts are ‘relevant’ to them – well, so do many arts professionals. Should we be trying to persuade the untutored public of the relevance of, say, Puccini? Or should we ditch Puccini and get with the programme? Is the former patronising, and the latter artistic dumbing-down? The example that springs to mind is the glorious game of cricket. Noticing that its traditional audience was dying off and that ever fewer schools were teaching the game, the cricket world introduced various short forms to appeal to those for whom five-day Test cricket is mystifying, dull and unengaging. One-Day Internationals and limited overs cricket have led to the Twenty:20 game – a crash-bang-wallop affair lasting about two hours. It sells out the ground, but, in the view of some, has coarsened and devalued the subtleties of the game. We have much to learn from sectors outside the arts: see you in the pavilion, perhaps?
Catherine Rose, Editor