Thursday, 14 March 2024
Keir Starmer speaking at the Labour Creatives Conference
Labour leader sets out his plans for creative education, improving conditions for freelancers, and his hope to boost funding for arts and culture organisations across the country.
Labour will reform school accountability frameworks to include arts subjects in its first days of government should it win the next election, party leader Keir Starmer has vowed. Speaking at the Labour Creatives Conference held at Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London today (14 March), Starmer said all children will be able to study a creative arts subject or sport until they're 16. “... read more
Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Culture Secretary doubles down on previous comments around trigger warnings and speaks about forthcoming review of Arts Council England during interview with Arts Professional.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer
Photo:

UK Government

Productions containing disturbing scenes such as serious sexual assualt do not require trigger warnings as people should be able to make a decision based on reviews, Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has said. Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with Arts Professional Frazer doubled down on comments... read more
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Wednesday, 06 March 2024

Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget 2024 has unveiled a range of tax relief support and project funding for the cultural sector.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
Photo:

Parliament TV

Arts leaders have welcomed “game-changing” measures announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his Spring Budget to permanently increase rates of cultural tax relief for theatres, orchestras, museums, and galleries. Introduced as temporary measures to help support the cultural sector in 2021, rates of... read more
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Monday, 18 March 2024

Calls for sector focus to reduce high levels of poor mental health among performers following a 'destabilising and challenging' five years.

View from behind a clinical specialist speaking to a patient
Photo:

Pexels/Cottonbro Studio

The number of performers seeking help for mental health challenges has risen sharply since the pandemic, a charity has said. The British Association for Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM) said the number of mental health consultations it conducted in 2023 represented a 396% increase on the 2019... read more
Monday, 18 March 2024

'Guerilla' festival of Palestinian art and culture staged by protesters inside London's Barbican Centre.

Protesters inside the Barbican Centre
Photo:

Cultural Workers Against Genocide

Protestors occupied the main foyer of the Barbican Centre on Saturday (16 March) as part of a "protest against censorship and cultural genocide". Cultural Workers Against Genocide said it staged a "guerilla" festival of Palestinian art and culture - featuring a pop-up radio station, dance and... read more
Monday, 18 March 2024

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer says forthcoming review will help 'ensure that Arts Council England is driving creative excellence in the arts by funding ambitious projects of the highest quality'.

Arts Council England sign
Photo:

Howard Lake/Creative Commons

Dame Mary Archer, the former Chair of the Science Museum Group will lead a government-ordered review of Arts Council England, it has been announced. The review, part of the Cabinet Office’s Public Body Reviews programme, will be tasked with looking at the effectiveness of the organisation and its... read more
Thursday, 14 March 2024

London's Vault Festival of theatre and performance has announced its closure after funding for its new venue fell through.

Photo:

Vault Festival

London’s Vault Festival has announced its closure after failing to secure principal funding to open a new central London venue. The festival's new home was due to open later this year, but without funding the organisation said it is unable to continue operating with staff facing redundancy. Andy... read more
Wednesday, 13 March 2024

The institution says its reliance on legacy infrastructure has impacted its ability to restore services quickly in the wake of a major ransomware attack last October.

Exterior of the British Library
Photo:

vv shots/iStock

The British Library has published a report examining the implications of a major ransomware attack on the institution last year. The attack, first identified on 28 October 2023, involved the copying and exfiltrating of around 600GB of files, equivalent to just under half a million individual... read more
Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Calls for co-ordinated response to heritage crimes from police forces across England as study highlights impact of opportunistic offenders and organised crime groups on the sector.

Photo:

Essex Police

New research by Historic England and the National Police Chiefs’ Council has found that historic stone theft is on the rise in England, with no sign that it is likely to abate. The Heritage and Cultural Property Crime research found that walls and paving slabs in Yorkshire and Cheshire were... read more
Tuesday, 12 March 2024

The Library Campaign says Birmingham City Council’s plan to close 25 of its local libraries as part of far-reaching budget cuts would breach the Public Libraries and Museums Act.

Photo:

Maisna/iStock

A charity supporting libraries has said it intends to challenge the legality of plans to close the majority of libraries in Birmingham. Last week members of Birmingham City Council approved a series of cuts, thought to be the biggest in local authority history, amid a budget gap of around £300m,... read more
Monday, 11 March 2024

Details of an artistic programme to be staged at mobile venue from next month coincide with push by opposition politicians on Oldham Council for the theatre company to return to its former home.

The interior of the Roundabout pop-up theatre
Photo:

Paines Plough

Oldham Coliseum has announced it will make use of a 167-seater pop-up theatre to host a variety of events beginning it late April, a year after it was forced to leave its historic premises having lost Arts Council England funding. Coliseum at the Roundabout,will utilise a pop-up theatre developed... read more
Monday, 11 March 2024

News that another theatre will stage performances  exclusively for Black, Indigenous and People of Color-identifying audience members follows criticism of the concept by Downing Street last month.

Exterior of Seven Dials Playhouse
Photo:

Google

Seven Dials Playhouse in London will stage two 'Black Out' performances of a play about a police shooting of a Black motorist in the US, it has been announced. Blue, which began its run at the venue last week and runs until 30 March, has scheduled Black Out performances next Monday (18 March) and... read more