The pound and the fury

The entire AP office spent a good five minutes this week googling ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’, the nineties business book by Spencer Johnson. Why? Partially because it reminded our Chief Executive of the current state of the sector, mostly because, well, it’s cheese. (The answer to all my dreams, obviously.) But back to Johnson’s bestseller which I now know is the story of four mice – Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw – responding to the shifty swipe of their cheese supply: Sniff has a nose for hunting out cheese; Scurry specialises in the discovery of new cheeses; Hem labours away under the delusion that more cheese might eventually arrive while Haw eventually learns to overcome his fears (and hunger) by following the example set by the first two. Looking at the findings from both the AP (p1) and SOLT reports (p2), it’s a pretty accurate analogy to make on how our industry is responding to change. Where SOLT’s findings suggests commercial, non-subsidised, London theatres are succeeding in tough times with riskier work (the new, the lesser-known, and the rise of plays), AP’s survey predicts a swing to more conservative programming: a return to safe revivals versus more challenging or edgier art.
Pessimism might be the order of the day when it comes to headline news on budgets and funding, but it’s worth remembering that not everyone is averse to change and different coping mechanisms will and have been adopted by arts organisations. Over a quarter of those asked by AP, after all, expect to recruit more staff in the coming year – a surprise perhaps, but proof that there is a significant variety of ways in which the industry is coping with bad news from the big cheeses (sorry). Rubbish dairy metaphors aside, let’s not also forget that not every arts organisation is a publicly subsidised one, and so a reduction in regular funding isn’t necessarily a sector-wide concern. It’s these companies, the ones surviving without arts funders, that I’d like to take a closer look at (and in fact, we do in AP223 with an article on just that from Shakespeare’s Globe). How have they braved restrictive budgets? What do they do that works outside the parameters of publicly funded art?
Building alternative sources of revenue can require lateral thinking, just ask Punchdrunk; prior to this month’s Duchess of Malfi extravaganza with English National Opera, the Shoreditch theatre company was appointed official party planner to the launch of a Louis Vuitton store in Bond Street. If that’s not ‘diversifying your income stream’ I’m not sure what is. And what of the 27,000 registered arts charities? Donations, legacies and charitable income can’t be sniffed at. I mean, if the grand old Royal Opera House (p1) easily passes the Charity Commission’s assessment on whether it’s for the public benefit (despite that public amounting to a tiny percentage of the population), there’s every chance your organisation could. I have a reasonable suspicion that DCMS’s budget cuts plan to hit culture hardest, with bigger losses than sport, media, heritage or the Olympics might suffer. This does not have to be accepted fate, but now is not the time for those working in the arts to remain as quiet as mice.