“You’re gay.” This was my friend’s less-than-subtle advice as we plotted to snag a delightful £15,000 from the Arts Council for my new play. “I’m not gay,” I protested. “So what?” he replied, shrugging. “The Arts Council is on the hunt for gayness. Just be gay.” If only life—and funding—were that simple!
The Arts Council seemed more interested in the health problems and sexual proclivities of the cast.
The Arts Council, bless its heart, loves to help the downtrodden: the sick, the frail, and the eternally marginalized. If you can claim a disadvantage, they’re all ears. Their lovely jargon about “equitable distribution” is like a warm hug, provided you come wrapped in underrepresented characteristics. While it’s sweet of them to try and promote diverse art, it borders on patronizing. Must we really assume that those from minority backgrounds cannot create art without some extra funding poured into their laps?
To mount my play, I was advised to slap a £9,176 price tag on my script and add £199.95 each week for auditions and rehearsals—totaling a neat £10,000. For merely pulling a script out of my drawer and sending it off to the government! Imagine the backlash if a film company attempted this model, paying writers for just emailing scripts! Yet, the Arts Council didn’t even bother asking for a synopsis! They were too busy investigating the cast’s health issues and sexual escapades. It’s like being sponsored by a whimsical monarch—think Ludwig II of Bavaria funding Richard Wagner, but instead, the Arts Council expects everyone else to pick up the tab for their pet projects. The big question is: do you want to invest in pretentious drivel produced by talentless hacks? With significant funding rolling in from the National Lottery, chances are, you already are!
The Arts Council rots the society it purports to serve.
Think of the Arts Council as the ultimate fussy patron—it favors sugary projects designed to make everyone “feel included.” But art should really be more like a wasabi hit: it shocks, it challenges, and it definitely doesn’t belong in a nursery. By enforcing a welcoming vibe, the Arts Council seems to imply everyone walks around feeling perpetually excluded. In reality, most of us relish the chance to discover new cultures, sample exotic cuisines, and dive into history. Instead, they present a world where anxious social misfits shout their cultural grievances from the rooftops, demanding cash for their self-pity. In doing so, they turn dissent into a veritable goldmine.
The Arts Council creates a grim reality where everyone’s got to play the victim card for a check. Phrases like “I’m deeply oppressed” echo throughout their funding applications. This isn’t just theater; this is a theatrical sideshow where anyone can waltz in with their grievances and hit the funding jackpot! So I promptly identified as a gay man—because who doesn’t love a convenient label? Suddenly, I’d discovered a new dialect: Arts Council-ese. And the greatest part? Identifying as diverse doesn’t actually require proof. If you declare yourself diverse enough to make key strategic decisions, voilà! You’re in.
That’s why I identified as a gay man—to tilt the system in my favor.
But wait—there’s more! The Arts Council also seems to have a morbid fascination with people’s sex lives and mental health. In their excitement to fund ‘mental health’ art projects, they ask about the mental well-being of all involved. Since I didn’t possess my actors’ case notes, I gracefully omitted this section. However, one can’t help but wonder why such intimate information is a prerequisite for funding—a bit nosy, don’t you think?
To enhance my odds while applying, I attended several Zoom webinars hosted by Arts Council staff. One question lingered: Is this grant a gift or a loan? “The money is yours,” they chirped. Amazing, right? They toss cash around like confetti, and what do they expect? A tech flop? Apparently, they view “unexpected profits” as nuisances. You read that right—an actual commercial success is seen as a bother. In the real world, profit is the name of the game, but with the Arts Council, it’s more like they’re trying to stamp out any hope of success.
Funding flops: that’s the goal, apparently.
So, what’s on the menu for compensation? High salaries for everyone! The Arts Council asked me to list wages for a lighting designer, sound technician, and associate producer. Surprise, surprise, they suggested an inflated pay rate that could scare off any newcomer hoping to dip their toes in theater’s shallow waters. While actors may settle for lower rates out of passion, unions propose fantasy figures. This might kill off small productions because who can afford actors demanding £600 a week? But the Arts Council appears to disdain the notion of lower wages, barring volunteers and aspiring students from getting those all-important experience points. Their bureaucracy takes down the community spirit, the collective wisdom lost in a maze of self-imposed regulations.
After I completed my application—yes, I got the exact same hold-up comment back nine weeks later. My romantic notion of snagging funding went up in smoke. Still, they offered advice for revision, likely to encourage me to have another go at their cash cow.
My eyes now glimmered at the ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grants, intended for “creative practitioners who want to focus on their development.” How delightfully vague! With funds ranging from £2,000 to £12,000, it felt like an open invitation to throw money at potentially frivolous pursuits. The Arts Council boasted about their grants, parading success stories like peacocks, yet one couldn’t help but wonder if some budget-supported jaunts were merely excuses for paid vacations masquerading as “creative exploration.”
The Arts Council is against the arts.
The Arts Council might as well be a vehicle for poorly veiled unemployment statistics—much like the Enterprise Allowance Scheme during the Thatcher era, where the government provided benefits under the pretense of helping individuals start businesses. In my case, my “business” was writing novels while I was still getting benefits, essentially unleashing ‘wealth creators’ onto a bemused society. The result? An avalanche of funded impossibilities.
Given that people have been creating art long before the Arts Council strutted onto the scene in 1946, the sheer ironic tragedy is that, now, the very institution that claims to support the arts is slowly suffocating creativity under layers of red tape. Freeing art means letting go of the Arts Council. In that sense, they are the true artists—the masters of the absurd!
