Last word

Trouble ahead?
Proof that AP has its finger on the pulse has been amply shown in the wider media over the past month, as the issue of arts internships (AP211) has been taken up by the Guardian, the Observer, the Spectator and even the Daily Mail. I speculated then whether the Future for Jobs scheme would reach lower income groups – perhaps the Powers That Be were listening. Gordon Brown’s tiny new scheme-ette, however, raises more questions than it answers (p1). The DCMS and the Jerwood Foundation don’t want to use the word ‘internships’, perhaps because they want to target young performers and visual artists as well as future arts managers, and actual artists rarely become interns. But how will it work? How many arts organisations can offer a six-month placement to an impoverished young sculptor, for example? How many theatre companies can guarantee six solid months of performing and perhaps stage-management work to a novice, however brilliant? The vast majority of the sector simply doesn’t work like that. Once again, the larger and more established arts organisations, which could perhaps pay for their own internships, are more likely to benefit. (The ROH’s Tony Hall is probably already on the phone to the Jerwood Foundation.) Although the unions have initially appeared welcoming, what will happen when a ‘workie’ supplants an established Equity member in the cast of a professional production? Of course, it’s easy to be cynical. Around 60–70 half-year placements will not set the Thames on fire, but it is an interesting gesture. A leg-up for hot talent from deprived backgrounds has to be a good idea, but the devil will be in the detail.

Polly ticks
It is increasingly clear that all the main political parties are ticking all the same boxes on funding (Labour and Tories will ‘argue for it’, the Lib Dems say they will protect it), local authority arts provision and creativity. The Cultural Leadership Programme’s Cultural Debate and the Arts Hustings organised by the National Campaign for the Arts, while reinforcing the basic lack of difference, have also revealed one cheering aspect – the argument that the arts are generally worth the money finally seems to have stuck. However, post-Sustain, the range and type of organisations which have either closed or faced crisis in recent times is instructive. A national umbrella organisation (The Anne Peaker Centre, AP211), a regional disability network (Kaleido, AP212), a producing theatre (the Northcott, p2) and a major arts centre (the Institute of Contemporary Arts, p3) are all under the cosh or actually on the way out – and countless smaller companies are in similar straits, under the radar of the media. Let us hope all those energetic politicians are keeping a weather eye on the situation.