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Just enjoyin' my coffee.
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Bonfire of the government arts funding
- Thread starter Cloo
- Start date
The twice I saw opera, it wasn't expensive or elitest. La Boheme with school, circa 1990, somewhere in London. it had subtitles.
Second time, Bristol Hipadrome, Toska with GF.
IN the UK there is the cliche is it's for the top hat and tails lot watching it from the balcony. I think it's part of sneering at culture in general, like being fluent in a foreign language or going to the theatre is a bit "oo get you." Hangover from some Victorian notion of knowing your place or something.
Second time, Bristol Hipadrome, Toska with GF.
IN the UK there is the cliche is it's for the top hat and tails lot watching it from the balcony. I think it's part of sneering at culture in general, like being fluent in a foreign language or going to the theatre is a bit "oo get you." Hangover from some Victorian notion of knowing your place or something.
hash tag
Reaching out
It is possible to watch a live performance of a top production at a cinema. You might want to think carefully about selecting something you might like.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Yep, and part of that was the Labour cabinet & CEO authorising the council's in-house home builder to manage the Fairfield Halls' refurbishment. What should have cost £30 million ended up costing £70 million, with much of the work needing re-doing as it was so shit. In true slapstick style, a couple of £100,000 grand pianos walked out of storage too...
Croydon Council's in-house home builder - Brick x Brick - was what bankrupted the council. They kept drawing down money, while not even starting to repay loans at scheduled times. Now Croydon is fucked, & they're STILL finding funding black holes where money has gone for a walk.
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
This - and the thread title and much of the thread - appears to be a complete misinterpretation of what has happened with the Arts Council funding. Unless there's something I'm missing, there doesn't appear to have been any kind of 'bonfire' of funding in terms of the overall amount being given out. All that has happened is that more money has been allocated to organisations outside of London. And according to this article in the FT today :Subscribe to read | Financial Times the allocation of funding in London has reduced from £21 per capita to £18.80 while outside London it's gone up from £6 to £7.40.From the government that brought you 'Wokeness is a threat to Are Kultcha', massive defuding of theatres, performing arts etc, including orchestras, Donmar Warehouse theatre and English National Opera. Under the guise of 'Oooh it's levelling up', which would be fine if it were sincere, but it's mostly sounding like an empty excuse not to fund the arts.
I know many of you will not be getting out your little violins (no pun intended) but groups like ENO really were doing a lot to widen access and there is a current option on the table to move to Manchester, but that does already have Opera North, a top-class national institution in itself there.
English National Opera to leave London as arts funding gets levelled up
The Arts Council England financial announcement is the biggest shake-up of culture funding in years.www.bbc.co.uk
So just a pretty minor adjustment to allow us provincial plebs just a teensy little bit more culture and really not an 'empty excuse not to fund the arts'. But that is how it has been presented by London luvvies and the London media arts correspondents so I'm not surprised this is the story you've picked up Cloo
hash tag
Reaching out
levelling up.
Was reading about this. Fully in support of ENO being forced to move to Manchester. I also think Parliament should be moved immediately to Bradford, the High Court located in Grimsby, and all other major arts organisations spread across the country. London can keep Kew Gardens cos the plants might not travel well. Let’s take levelling up seriously.From the government that brought you 'Wokeness is a threat to Are Kultcha', massive defuding of theatres, performing arts etc, including orchestras, Donmar Warehouse theatre and English National Opera. Under the guise of 'Oooh it's levelling up', which would be fine if it were sincere, but it's mostly sounding like an empty excuse not to fund the arts.
I know many of you will not be getting out your little violins (no pun intended) but groups like ENO really were doing a lot to widen access and there is a current option on the table to move to Manchester, but that does already have Opera North, a top-class national institution in itself there.
English National Opera to leave London as arts funding gets levelled up
The Arts Council England financial announcement is the biggest shake-up of culture funding in years.www.bbc.co.uk
lazythursday
Well-Known Member
Actually with climate change there might be a good case for relocating the plants northward too.
It’s possible. Keithley?
ouirdeaux
Caring, Understanding, Non-judgemental Type
Don't know when you were in London, but in the '90s I could get standing tickets for Covent Garden for about £3. When people said opera was elitist, I asked them what non-elitist music was going at that price.
Reno
The In Kraut
I did that once and found I don't love opera enough to stand for 3 hours. Also, where I stood my view was obscured. At the ENO I was in the gods but they were decent seats for which I was happy to for out 15 Pounds then and still under 40 in more recent years.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Non-elitist music would love the millions in tax payers and lotto fund grant funding that allows them to charge £3. Then they too could charge £3.
They don't get the funds because the elites drain the public and use it for themselves. Are you really not understanding that?
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
ENO moving to Manchester specifically is a very odd suggestion given that, as Cloo says, there's already an equivalent there. That's part of the problem - lack of planning.
I do always ripple a little bit when people suggest moving every single fucking thing out of London, as if people living in London don't really count, despite there being 8 million of us plus the burbs, and most of us aren't rich either. And as if no other country in the world has a capital city.
But some of it needs to move out - it just needs to be done well, and with the acknowledgement that some centralisation is beneficial due to transport, parking, and changes from residential to a space with thousands of people coming in every day. It's not like it's just plonking down a venue and nothing else changes except for the better.
Nice cheap residential areas with a neighbourly feel won't be any of that if they're suddenly next to a major business and culture hub. Be careful what you wish for.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Might be nice for London to feel how the rest of the country does all the time…
What's this bullshit?
Yes. Its nice how unaffordable housing has become across the country after years of no one giving a shit about it in London.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
There's nothing odd about a lack of government planning
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Arts, media and culture in this country being massively London-centric is hardly a contentious position.
London is rich. In every sense of that word. Try living in Bradford. Or Rochdale. Or Leicester. You can see the money in London on the very streets, on the public transport, on the performing arts, in the schools, in museums and galleries. And it perpetuates the liberal elites sense of entitlement, it’s their norm to be surrounded by it, they simply can’t imagine what life’s like without it. Read the Guardian. It’s dripping in it. Then move it all out. If opera is gonna be three quid a night then let it be in Rochdale.
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
If that's true, that's not really a good argument for making people move there. But I kinda had the opposite impression. And it wasn't only Manchester under discussion. If you build a massive cultural venue, it changes the area a hell of a lot, and not necessarily in a way that benefits the people who already live there. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done at all, I'm just saying that it's not without consequences if you actually live there already.
If anyone here genuinely wants to have a massive venue built down the end of their road with years of road closures and venues and former common land being closed or knocked down, and their kids to be priced out of renting, let alone buying, but hey, at least their kids can get jobs serving coffee to the people who own the tiny flats they still can't afford, that's what happens. (Stratford, East London. Olympics).
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
Try living in Whitechapel or East Ham. London has most of the poorest boroughs in the UK even without taking rents into account.
I have tried living in Leicester, and I'm certain there are impoverished areas, because there are everywhere, but it's not exactly down-at-heel.
If what's true? That it's not some provincial backwater where the housing is cheap and everyone gets on?
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
No. You said "There aren't any cheap residential areas with a neighbourly feel in Manchester." Not sure how you could change it that much!
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
They won't. Not even sure they'll be able to move to Manchester, since there's already something similar there.
The discussion had moved on.
To make a point that you're talking about Manchester in a way I don't recognise. Manchester is a relatively expensive city, with poorer areas for sure, but I can't imagine there being another big cultural centre being built there in the way you're suggesting might be on the cards.
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
I'm not sure what lens people are viewing my posts through, but it seems to be as if I'm a rich Guardianista who lives in a palace, earns £120k and hates the North. Please bear in mind that you guys do actually know me and roughly know my circumstances. I'm not against moving venues to other regions, but if you wish that for your area, it does come with drawbacks, and the conversation did move on from being specifically about the ENO.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
i have been having the argument with people from north of watford since the late 80s and pointing out that london is not all the same as knightsbridge...
there's large chunks of working class london that the tories / the establishment are only interested in if they want to give chunks of it to their property developer chums. (grenfell tower is one high profile example of working class london)
this whole 'levelling up' thing is tory divide and rule bullshit, and punishing london (and at the same time tory voters in the home counties - which may not be a good political idea) for voting for the wrong colour (rosette or otherwise) mayor in 2016
there's large chunks of working class london that the tories / the establishment are only interested in if they want to give chunks of it to their property developer chums. (grenfell tower is one high profile example of working class london)
this whole 'levelling up' thing is tory divide and rule bullshit, and punishing london (and at the same time tory voters in the home counties - which may not be a good political idea) for voting for the wrong colour (rosette or otherwise) mayor in 2016
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