NCA, NOTTINGHAM PLAYHOUSE, KINGSTON THEATRE, BLACK ARTS ALLIANCE

2 MARCH 2005

  Q480 Mr Doran: You can argue for something like that?

  Ms Bakewell: I think so certainly. I think it would be highly persuasive at a point where treasury criteria are very exacting, and it would be something that the Treasury would have to take note of because it would be in their vocabulary.

  Sir Peter Hall: I think the confusion, if I may say so, is what usually comes out of these surveys is a general increase in revenue and turnover for the whole area around the theatre and people, I think, do confuse that with the theatre itself. If you start making a case for making money for the town, you start saying well the theatre is making money, and very few theatres, as we know, do make money. To me the most difficult point of all is how do you make theatre important when it is as important as it is, because it is not publicly recognised as important? For me it goes back to the days—from about 1979 onwards—when there was a definite frost on the arts, we all know, we all suffered miserably, and there was a sense that if you asked for money for the arts you were a welfare state beggar. I was called it by a minister, I remember. I think that still has stuck to some degree, and that is why the increase three years ago, two years ago, was so welcome that one felt that the theatre was being recognised. I would put the question back to you. How can we get government recognition for the theatre as one of the most important things we do spiritually and educationally?

  Q481 Mr Doran: I would throw that back at you and say that is your job and not mine?

  Sir Peter Hall: I think it has to be yours too.

  Q482 Mr Doran: It is my job to listen; it is your job to make the case.

  Sir Peter Hall: I have done my soap box.

  Q483 Chairman: It is my job to move on, I am afraid.

  Ms Bakewell: There is another problem, of course, which is that the inspirational element of the arts is unquantifiable. It is impossible to measure the value of a poem—a speech of Shakespeare's. How can you do it?

  Chairman: I think that was hugely stimulating. I am very sorry we have to curtail it, but we have a statement on the BBC at 12.30 and we are all working towards that. Thank you very much indeed.