Please Mr Vaizey it's not just about the money.

Dear Mr Vaizey,

Last Friday I went to the New Vic to see The Thrill of Love Amanda Whittington's excellent new play about Ruth Ellis.  Last Monday I was in London for the gfa meeting organised by the Antelopes and the Arts Council.

In the New Vic programme Amanda writes 'Three years ago Theresa Heskins (New Vic artistic director) and I discussed the idea of a Ruth Ellis play...'  It takes a long time for plays to get from the idea to the stage, on the way they need help, and success is not guaranteed. With theatres unable to commit funding to the uncertainty of new work increasingly they are being forced to opt for popularism and spectacle. Soon that will be all that is left because the current batch of new plays that have been gestating for the last few years will dry up soon.

Last Monday forty playwrights met with the Arts Council to discuss how to access funding.  We didn't go there cap in hand but because ACE, who were involved in setting up the meeting, aware of the difficulties of writers getting funding directly from theatres are anxious to do what little they can to make sure that there is a future for new work by letting us know how we could apply for alternative funding.

Anecdotes don't carry much weight, I know, but sometimes it seems to be all the individual has to offer. I've had two projects cancelled because of the lack of funds. One was the retouring of a successful play that had played to 92% when the company first produced it because they didn't get the strategic touring money they expected and without it couldn't afford to take the risk, the other, a musical, had been delivered, paid for, and had four weeks of development funded by ACE only for the company to lose its status and funding.

We make work and we provide work. We earn money true, for ourselves, the theatres who put on our work, those who work on our productions, from actors to cleaning staff, and for the exchequer.  We don't want handouts.  We don't consider ourselves to be a special case.

Our job is writing plays, and together we make a major contribution to the economy, and, each of us, is proud of our own small contribution to our shared culture. Take away our ability to do that by depriving the theatres of the ability to work with us and we'll all be the poorer.

Best Wishes,
Nick Wood

Ebacc Shelved!

I spotted last night on twitter that Mr Gove has shelved the Ebacc. I suppose it had to happen after the cross party opposition and the gradual drip of concessions but somehow I never believed it would. That's why when I woke up this morning I had to go on line and see. There it was on the BBC website so it must be true.
It was defeated with the help of high profile names and institutions, but not because of them. I believe it was defeated because Mr Gove's arrogance, and a well co-ordinated campaign, made people realise for the first time how much they would have missed if the arts had been denied them when they were at school and they didn't want that for their kids.  Neither did they want to live in a society that such a restrictive curriculum would have fostered. 
But it would be naive if we thought that the battle was won.  Mr Gove wants it in the next manifesto.  We don't yet know exactly how he intends to reshuffle what he sees as the core GCSEs. We must be vigilant because he'll have something else nasty lurking round the corner.
Whatever your political persuasion this has been a great result. I'd say it was a victory for common sense.

Django, Les Mis, and Lincoln.

So I've seen the big three, spent seven hours and twelve minutes in the dark, and what have I learned? 

Django.  A deeply moral film I thought.  Wonderful performances. Wonderful to look at. Artfully structured, sometimes tight, sometimes sprawling, sometimes almost clumsy, but at no point can you take your eyes away.  Except I could.  Couldn't watch some of the scenes. Wondered behind closed eyes if the sound effects wouldn't have had as great an impact.  Loved the humour.  Loved the way our need for humanity and love is expressed by an amoral bounty hunter. Loved the disjoint of material and form.  Loved the way I was unsettled throughout, when you think it's this, the rug is pulled away and it's suddenly that.  Loved the fact that it a film as much about the present as the past.  Loved the pastiche, the way genres were turned on their heads, but the scene with the Klan, although hysterical, felt more like a Mel Brooks out take than an homage. In the right hands, you can say more with humour and flash than you can with reverence as long as what seems excess is based on intelligence, passion, and a desire to tell the truth.  I'll be returning to the South later this year, driving past the white mansions on River Road, graphically aware whose backs they were built on.

Les Mis.  I never saw it on stage. I never wanted to. I went because I wondered if I'd been unfair, snobbish in my assertion that nothing on earth would ever drag me to The Glums.
And I still don't get it.  I don't get how Nunn, Caird, MacKintosh et al saw that this could be a success. The music is monotonous, the lyrics banal, the story repetitive.  I can see, as someone who was bowled over by the RSC Nicholas Nickleby that by bringing that style of early eighties upfront RSC energy to a piece like Les Mis some of the audience would be seeing something they'd never seen before in a theatre. But most of all I didn't care, about any of them, I just wanted them to stop so I could go home.  And, I know, it all comes down to taste. Some will like, some will loath. 
But there was one exception, a mini master class, a performance that jumped off the screen, Colm Wilkinson. The original Jean Valjean nipped in to play, God, I think, and showed how it should be done. In his few minutes there was more intensity and honesty than in the rest of snot - ridden, tear - sodden two hours and thirty seven long minutes.
I saw Colm Wilkinson when in another life I took a party of kids from Doncaster to see Jesus Christ Superstar. A Saturday matinee, well into the run, he was playing Judas. The opening minutes were very lack lustre, from where I sat in the stalls I could see the cast on the ramps either side of the stage were more interested in chatting than the audience. And then Mr Wilkinson took charge. His performance was incredible. A huge talent, totally in control, he shook the place up, and if I could lip read I'd be able to tell you what he said when he whirled around and laid into those cast members who were happy to cruise though a lazy Saturday afternoon.  If you're going to do something, do it, and don't give short change. A great man.

Lincoln.  I went to see it because I'd read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin - a wonderful book, and because I hoped that it was going to be more than God Bless America.  And it was. Like Django it is concerned with the present as well as the past. Excellent performances all round.  Day-Lewis is amazing. It's a performance that is restrained, it doesn't seek to dominate, this Lincoln can exasperate with his endless tales but he can listen too.  Like Django It doesn't let us off easy. This story isn't about the past. The battle isn't over. Complacency and prejudice are still as strong. The same mistakes are being made.  Lincoln fought the battle with his weapons in his time, but his victories were only a step on the way.  The final moments of the film flash back to Lincoln giving his second inaugural speech which reaches out as a rallying call for us to continue to be vigilant.
And the Oscar goes to .....?

Fear and Risk @ the index on censorship conference.

At the start of the conference Jude Kelly posed the question that at a time when arts organisations are vulnerable to funding cuts can they afford to court controversy by promoting challenging work? Of course the answer has to be yes, otherwise, as another speaker, said the alternative is to follow the increasingly familiar path towards popularism and spectacle.
By the end of the conference I felt challenged, encouraged, and at the same time fearful as to whether brave words and intentions could survive not only the attacks on individual works of art that are becoming more common, but the governments insidious chipping away at our culture as evidenced by the Ebacc proposals and the cutting of funding to humanities in the university sector.
Personally I find the rise of the minority pressure group and its ability to use the threat of protest as a means to prevent the discussion of issues it wishes to avoid very disturbing indeed.
It's okay to demand the right to believe what you wish to believe in, but why does that right deny my right to oppose or challenge those beliefs? And why is that point of view not being challenged?  Mona Siddiqui, in a platform session,asked 'should religious faith be protected at all?' and suggested that 'we don't have the conversation because we are afraid of confrontation.' 
The world has changed since the Satanic Verses, as Anthony Julius pointed out. Now any group that senses a challenge, real or imaginary, can play the religious intolerance card with almost instant success. 
It's not right, is it?  If I can respect your right to believe the moon is made of cheese, why can't you respect my right to disagree?  If your faith is firm enough then how can it be weakened by my questions, or damaged by my doubt?
Dr Siddiqui is right - we are afraid of the problems that opening a dialogue might bring. Me?  I'm more afraid that in avoiding that dialogue our positions will become even more dangerously entrenched and we'll not learn that our shared humanity is what defines us, not what we choose to believe in.

Arts Funding : Thank You, Will Gompertz. If you can't trust the Today programme to get it right what can you do?

So Will Gompertz, thank you very much.  The arts are subsidised to 'no great effect'. Really?  And your evidence for this statement is...?  Sorry? Pardon? Didn't quite catch that.
Did you set out to do the Daily Mail's work for them?  Of course you didn't.  I've listened to you and I respect your views and I know you are a dedicated supporter of the arts.
So was the item too quickly put together? Was it poorly edited?  Did a slip of the finger delete the counter argument - and the facts - from the final broadcast?  We'll never know how the Today programme let in such a shoddy piece of reporting but thanks again for feeding the argument that the arts are irrelevant and elitist. Why should we pay for the rich to go to the ballet and the opera?  Why don't we cut the funding to the arts?  Save a few bob. What a good idea.
Only it isn't though, is it, Will?
I've been a full time playwright for approaching twelve years now and I've done a few back of the envelope sums to try and work out how many people, leaving aside the audience numbers, have been involved in the arts through my own work or through work I've been engaged you do. It's an estimate, Will, and I've gone on the low side.

Plays.
Warrior Square.
Playwrighting workshops for eight schools in the Huyton area : Action Transport. 240 + young people.
Children of the Crown.
Workshops on structure and playmaking. Art project in junior school : Nottingham Playhouse. 50 + young people.
Broken Spaces.
Year long youth project sharing work with companies in Italy and France : Nottingham Playhouse. 23 young people.
Mockingbird Hill.
Play for Nottingham Youth Theatre : 90 + young people.
Paradise.
Play for Sheffield Crucible Youth Theatre : 30 + young people.
She sat next To You, Not Me.
Play for junior school assemblies : Theatre Royal, Plymouth. 250 + young people and teachers.
A Workhouse Christmas.
A community play : Jumped Up Theatre Company, Peterborough. 60 + adults and young people.
Up the Slack
Promenade performance : Jackfield Festival. 20 young people.

Projects.
Crossed Purposes.
Cross generational project : Eastern Angles. 120 + young people and adults.
Momentum.
Playwrighting projects : Theatre Writing Partnership.  40 + young people.
Nottingham Playhouse Summer School.
15 adults.
Roundabout Playwrighting Project.
Nottingham Playhouse playwrighting project in junior schools. 200+ young people.
RSC Teachers' INSET events.
30 + teachers.
Comedy of Errors.
RSC project with schools in Cardiff, Wolverhampton and Nottingham. 120 + young people and teachers.
Coriolanus.
RSC project with young people in Sandwell. 30 + young people and teachers.
The Canterbury Tales.
RSC project with schools in Melton Mowbury. 60 + young people and teachers.
Two Gentlemen Of Verona.
RSC community project in Ely, March and Littleport.  80 + adults and young people.
Julius Caesar.
RSC community project in Ollerton, North Notts. 70 + young people and adults.
The Tempest.
RSC schools project in Rotherham. 120 + young people.
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
RSC schools Playwrighting project in Birmingham schools.  120+ young people.

Okay, Will, so that adds up to 1768. Not a huge figure. I could add to it if I went back through my work diaries and picked up all the sessions I've forgotten. And in some of those projects, like the assembly plays for the Theatre Royal in Plymouth were another eleven playwrights also involved ans the RSC work, my contribution was only a part of the whole. Start to put all that in and the numbers get bigger.  To make it a round figure let's say that arts subsidy has allowed me to work with 2000 people.  And I'm just one playwright. Think of all the other artists, the working in all disciplines, all over the country. Before making statements about how arts subsidy is failing the people of this country, remember  what they say in the Sates, Will, and do the math.

The English Baccalaureate Will Damage Our Children

When I was growing up I thought baccalaureate was a wonderful word.  I wished I could chuck O levels and A levels and take a baccalaureate.  When French students talked about le bac  it made education sound sexy.  When I heard about the International Baccalaureate – an exam so wide and embracing and mysterious that it could only be taken by those with enlightened parents wealthy enough to send them to Atlantic College where they sailed the Bristol Channel and ran their own Mountain Rescue Service I wished I could go there too.  And now Mr Gove has given us the English Baccalaureate, a qualification so shrivelled up and insular that it pays little attention to the needs of the present day or our rich cultural heritage that he and his party are so fond of defending.

What it is that makes it so destructive?  There is to be a core curriculum – English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, French and another modern language/Latin and PE.  At first glance this is a reasonable spread of subjects. Not suited to all perhaps but surely there will be arrangements put in place for those whose educational needs lie in different directions?  But consider what it doesn’t include. For a start what’s happened to sport, IT, any element of Design Technology, Art, Music, Drama?  Where they are offered at all, it is to be outside the core curriculum as extra-curricular activities.

The EBAC has been sneaked in. It began as a list of nominated subjects that would get schools special consideration in the points table if they produced a sufficient number of students with grade C and above. And in education points don’t mean prizes, they mean survival for the many schools whose catchment areas don’t provide them with a majority of academically inclined students.  Then followed a direct hit at those schools who, knowing their community, and aware of the needs and abilities and aptitudes of their own students let them follow subjects suited those criteria, only to discover that those subjects were to lose all their points.

A Tory minister came on to the Today Programme to tell us how ridiculous it was that schools were teaching subjects like Horse Management and Fish Farming at GCSE level and claiming that they should be given the same value as History and Geography. Until the programme was swamped with phone calls, texts and e mails from parents in rural areas, a lot of them declaring themselves to be Tory voters, protesting at such a short sighted lack of understanding.

We’re now moved on and the EBAC has been redrafted and will be introduced with no margin for compromise. Sport. IT. Design Technology.  Art. Music. Drama. And a host of other valuable subjects all pushed out. And why?   So we can return to what its supporters see as a fondly remembered golden age when state secondary education imitated the public school model.  For grammar schools and direct grant schools read academies and free schools.  We don’t yet, in name, have the secondary modern schools to shovel off all those who don’t fit the approved model but they are being created, slowly, and without anyone but those affected really noticing, by gradually syphoning off over the brightest from the existing state schools and into the new schools for profit.

The EBAC will not only damage our children by depriving them of the education they need to equip them for the twenty first century, it will take away one of their basic rights, that they should be able to feel a part of the cultural life of their country, and I use the word culture in its widest sense. And it will hurt the nation. Where will be the artists?  And the money they generate? Where will the next Jessica Ennis or Mo Farrah, both of whom acknowledged PE teachers and school sports as a vital part of their development, look for encouragement?  And what about the kids who discover a love of sport at school and carry that enthusiasm with them when they leave into local football leagues and rugby clubs?  Will they find that level of enthusiasm when sport is jostling for space with everything else in an extra- curricular circus? (The proposed Nottingham Free Schools tell prospective parents that extra- curricular activities will last for 45 minutes, anything after that they’ll have to be paid for.) Can we seriously not have IT as a subject for all?  Or do we assume that kids pick up all the skills they need on facebook?  Where will the designers, and engineers, and chefs, and farm managers get their grounding? 

We want our young people to grow up fit, healthy, aware of the wider world , considerate and sensitive towards the needs of others, with the best educational qualifications they have been able to achieve.  If Mr Gove is allowed to restrict our children’s school experience to this narrow, measly, curriculum we will all be the poorer.

It is probably too much to hope that he will have a sudden change of mind and throw it all out and say sorry, chaps, you were right, I’ve made a mistake.  But we can show him that we are not satisfied.  That what he wants to do isn’t right.  And that may bring about a rethink.  The straps on the strait jacket may be eased a tad, and further enquiries set up, and time may pass, another education secretary take over, and the whole thing may be allowed to slip away like so many other educational initiatives.  I believe we can make that change come about by raising our objections at every possible opportunity.  And if we can’t then we may have to bite the bullet and start up a few free schools of our own.

Follow the link below for one way to support the campaign against the English Baccalaureate.

http://www.baccforthefuture.com/index.html

 

Nottingham Free School - Is this really the best we can offer our children?

A brochure came through the letterbox last week about the Torch Academy proposal to open a free school somewhere in Arnold and I found it very confusing.  And very worrying.  Okay, first, let’s get out all the possible axes I may have to grind. Until I left the profession eleven years ago to become a full time playwright I was a teacher. I taught in Watford, Doncaster, and Sheffield, my last post was Head of Expressive Arts at the Dukeries in Ollerton.  So that must mean that I’m an opponent of any initiative that threatens to take education out of local authority control. Not so. I’ve worked with enough kids from severely disadvantaged backgrounds to want to listen carefully to any proposal that might improve their opportunities. But Nottingham Free School?  That has got me concerned.  And working my way through their booklet and website has only deepened those concerns.  Everything appears to be straight forward, very little is.

Let’s start with the curriculum for years 7 and 8 because that’s all they will be offering at first. The core is the untried, untested English Baccalaureate offering English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, French, Spanish/Latin.  Years 7-8 will take these subjects as well as Philosophy and Ethics, Physical Education,  Design, Enterprise, Computing, Drama, PHSE, Art and Music.  Then it tells us ‘the core curriculum will be enhanced by opportunities to learn and participate in: Performing and Visual Arts, Leadership development (including public speaking & debating) and Enterprise opportunities’ A pretty full day, an exciting range of subjects. 

Then a little further on it tells us that the core curriculum ‘will be enhanced by the afterschool sessions covering Sport, Performing Arts, Music, Critical Thinking, Duke of Edinburgh and other leadership opportunities’.  So, doesn’t that mean everything outside the EBAC will be taught out of school hours?  But students will have the ‘unique opportunity to learn from professional coaches – including professional sports coaches, musicians and actors.’ Not from qualified teachers?

The website makes it a little clearer. It lays out the core curriculum and lists the following subjects as being outside the normal school day of 8.15 to 3.15.

• Art, Music and Drama
• A range of sports, taking advantage of local facilities
• Public speaking & other LAMDA qualifications
• Computing
• Further GCSE choices (e.g. Product Design, Food Technology, Sports Science)

All these opportunities are available until 4pm - that is for 45 minutes. And after 4pm? 'If there is sufficient demand additional supervised sessions maybe available after 4.00pm, for an additional cost.'

 

Nottingham Free School has as its banner ‘a science and creative arts specialist’,  one that proposes to jam the arts, sport, computing, and anything to do with Design Technology into forty five minutes a day, and if you think your child deserves a broader experience you'll have to pay for it. 

And in case we might wonder where all the 'football, rugby, cricket, and rowing' is going to take place the school will take 'advantage of our unique Arnold location to offer a wide range of sporting opportunities. which means they won't have any facilities themselves.

I happen to believe that the EBAC and its supporters are looking to return to an educational golden age that never existed outside school stories written in the nineteen fifties imposing on teachers and students a curriculum that is hardly suited to the twenty first century.  I think that depriving children of the chance to get involved in sport and the arts in the hope that the extra time can be translated into more exams passed in fewer subjects is an appallingly short sighted approach that will deprive a generation and undermine our culture.  But I'm a playwright so I would say that wouldn't I?  All I’d ask is that parents who are considering enrolling their children into this risky experiment should think back no further than to their own education, and without putting on rose coloured spectacles, or dwelling too long on those things that they didn’t go well, and ask themselves, do they really want their kids to miss out on all they took for granted?

I don’t doubt that the existing Torch schools are doing an excellent job for their pupils.  I question whether they need to build a free school somewhere in Arnold.  There are two existing schools here, embedded in the community, with structured plans to expand.  Let them get on with the job.

Two things do still nag at me as I think about the confusing way that the Nottingham Free School group presents itself.  Young people need to feel sure that that no-one is trying to be anything less than open with them.  On their Twitter feed is this:
Nottingham Post article reinforces our message that we're providing choice for parents in Arnold, Sherwood,... http://t.co/yRoYesSd about 11 days ago

Click the link and it takes you to an article with the headline 'Headteachers claim there is no need to set up two free schools in West Bridgford and Arnold'. Their tweet isn't exactly untrue, but then the article doesn't exactly reinforce their message that 'we're providing choice for parents in Arnold.'

And if you look at the qualifications of the two leaders of the Torch Group Mr Jonathan Taylor lists MA(OXON).  I know how hard it is to get a BA at Oxford.  My daughter who went to Arnold Hill worked hard for hers. I also know that to get an MA(OXON) you don’t have to do any work after your first degree, all you have to do is leave your name on the university books for seven years and pay them thirty quid.