Scottish theatre, it seems of late, has continued to build on the nation’s reputation for high-quality creative work on the stage. Two weeks ago, Scottish actors and performances won three awards at the Barclays TMA Awards, which also included a total of eight nominations. Although on the surface it appears the industry is going from strength to strength, the harsh reality is that recent successes are unlikely to be repeated unless serious funding issues are addressed.
The past year has seen Scotland’s drama funding increasingly complicated by a range of issues. Most recently, the Scottish Executive comprehensive spending review indicated that the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) funding could be frozen in 2003-04.
Head of Drama at the SAC, David Taylor, said the funding settlement from the Scottish Executive is still unknown, but the Minister for Culture, Mike Watson MSP, is expected to announce it within the next few weeks.
Standstill funding is never welcome news, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Scottish theatre.
Industry figures fear a talent drain southwards, in the wake of Westminster’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport injecting £25 million into England’s regional theatres.
The announcement came in early 2001, following the publication of the Arts Council of England’s specially commissioned report on the state of English regional theatres, by consultants Peter Boyden Associates.
Twelve million pounds was made available for 2002, with a further £25 million to be invested in full in 2003. England’s regional theatre companies received funding increases of up to 400 per cent, while the associated salary increases have been estimated at being in the vicinity of 17%.
Although the Scottish Executive announced an additional £3.5 million for theatre on January 28 this year, circumstances in the sector have since changed.
The industry now faces the pressure of increased wages to prevent talent heading south, putting additional strain on theatre company resources to the degree that some in the industry are saying, could lead to the scaling down of productions.
Facing a possible funding freeze, the Scottish Arts Council has echoed these concerns.
‘The volume of productions will decrease, meaning the chances of success, especially in the high-risk area of new writing, will diminish proportionally,’ Taylor says.
Hamish Glen is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Dundee Rep Theatre, Scotland’s only company employing full-time actors. Glen launched the ambitious project, New Ways of Working in 1999, employing 14 full-time actors including three apprentices each year.
The experiment has reaped the rewards, and awards, of staging regular productions with the same group of actors. This year saw the company’s production of Chekov’s The Seagull nominated for Best Touring Play at the TMA awards, building on the success of four other nominations in these awards over the past two years.
The company received Scottish Arts Council funding for the initial 3-year project, now in its fourth year, but for an organisation requiring ongoing funding the future is increasingly uncertain.
‘Scottish theatre has, I feel, recently been energised and has enjoyed an all too brief lift in morale as the Scottish Executive invested in the infrastructure,’ Glen explains. ‘However, it now feels as fragile as ever. The initial public investment has not been sustained, and has now been eroded in the face of increases in wage levels, (which is entirely appropriate), and in the amount and the quality of the work that has followed the Boyden Report in England.
‘It feels as if Scotland will become a second division theatre-making nation within a UK-wide industry,’ Glen worries. ‘If you can provide quality conditions of work, Scottish theatre makers can excel – the talent is there and waiting to be released.
‘Recent success at the TMA Awards is recognition that over the last couple of years there has been a modest investment in work.’
Despite this, Glen points to the same fact a number of key players in Scottish theatre have highlighted since the ACE funding boost: that devolution has not necessarily worked in their favour in this instance.
‘There is an irony here – if Scotland had not been devolved, it would have received approx £3.5m from the recent investment from Westminster following the Boyden Report.’
‘I think things are going to get worse and not better for Scottish Theatre,’ Glen concedes.
Meanwhile, the creation of Scotland’s proposed national theatre has been delayed. The Scottish Executive £3.5 million funding boost in January included £2 million originally earmarked for the commissioning company.
However, the Scottish National theatre is due to start performing in 2004, with industry players now worried that the lack of funds to develop existing infrastructure, a stated pre-requisite for the national theatre, and the threat of talent migrating south will lead to a second-rate institution.
While the development of a national theatre was considered by some as a key way to inject money into Scotland’s funding-starved theatre industry, its establishment seems likely to deprive other worthy organisations of much-needed funds while the threat of diminished talent to fulfil the agenda looms.
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