Arts Council England challenged over funding choices

[Cocothefirst]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8870099/Drag-artist-Le-Gateau-Chocolat-handed-215k-coronavirus-culture-fund.html

Established theatres and festivals were refused funding because of so-called 'cultural insignificance'.

Sigh.

Fucking hell.

A spokesman said: ‘We guess a 56-year-old festival (the oldest independent in the country) that has never needed funding, handouts or grants, always paid wages and bills and been financially viable every single year, is not worth saving.’

Joe Heap who runs that festival is devastated. All the other similar festivals got funding. They obviously didn't use the right form of words to use.

This is a really disingenuous article. Le Gateau will have had to have made his case via the official channels like any other applicant, and singling him out to compare him with others who lost out makes a pretty bad faith argument with some shockingly blatant undertones.

I know of him. He is an objectively talented, intelligent artist and has made some brilliant work. It’s not end of the pier nonsense like this story makes out. If he was pissing the money up the wall that’s a different matter - the piece doesn’t bother to tell anyone how it might be spent - but I don’t like what this article is saying at all.

Sorry - where I said bad faith argument I meant the Daily Mail and not you @testing987654321. I appreciate how devastating it must be for those who didn’t get it.

He’s a drag performer with two employees and £215,000 is double his company’s annual income. Why such a large grant, when most festivals and venues are struggling to survive the winter?

Well that’s the question that still needs to be answered, obviously @thinkingaboutLangCleg. He’s a theatre maker and I imagine the funding will create work for people rather than line his pockets. It would be absurd if it didn’t. But the DM just casually throwing it out there without waiting for any information or comment from the artist makes it a total hatchet job made to wind people up.

Was almost starting to give them the benefit of the doubt after the attention to detail of their coverage of issues around JKR and the Baroness, but this is just them up to their old tricks.

He’s a drag performer with two employees and £215,000 is double his company’s annual income. Why such a large grant

This^

While he may have been eligible for a grant, why on earth did they receive such a huge sum?

The DM article is just a bigoted, inaccurate dog whistle.

George Ikediashi is a wonderful and accomplished performer and his company has two permanent employees and also employs numerous freelancers. The money is going to his company (where it will pay other people), not to him personally.

I have personal involvement in arts funding and COVID arts relief and someone I'm close to was one of the people who negotiated the arts bailout. There are many factors behind how the money was allocated. I'm not saying I agree with all the choices but each person had to submit a detailed funding application showing exactly how they would use the money and the timeline and budget for the proposed project.

One of the requirements of the fund was that projects aimed at creating work during the period autumn 2020-spring 2021 would be prioritised, as the fund is intended to keep the arts going during this pandemic and because the government is/was working under the impression that theatre will be on the road to getting back to normal by spring 2021. This obviously hinders large companies and helps small companies and especially companies that produce one-person shows, since the fewer people involved, the more easily you can abide by COVID restrictions and the faster you can get a show into production.

I know that one respected festival was turned down because their application was for a project that would not start until August 2021. It was turned down purely based on the proposed timeline being too far into the future. Yet people handwring over "but whyyyyy did this festival not receive funding!"

Was almost starting to give them the benefit of the doubt after the attention to detail of their coverage of issues around JKR and the Baroness, but this is just them up to their old tricks.

Yes, the DM still has that PC-gone-mad! angle, but come on, this guy employs himself and one or two other people.

I'm seeing it really seep into the arts now.

Ok thanks for the info froggy

I'm glad the funding will support a company. However I'm disappointed it's supporting drag which I find misogynistic.

Of course arts funding always allocated in a very fair and unbiased way and is not at all rife with cronyism, fashionable diktat and cliques.

Absolutely Arabella, absolutely.

Absolutely Arabella.

Misogyny is very in vogue right now.

Ask anyone who works in the arts, you can see a pretty clear division between those who know the right people/have the right accent/background, and those who are outside of the hallowed circle. Skill and 'cultural significance' is just as likely in the latter group as the former. They just aren't as happy to bend to the prevailing tide, use the right buzzwords or rub along with the arts administrators, who are the main recipients of arts funding, of course.

Imho artists are likely to always be in tension with administrators and the state, because part of arts' function is in provocation, questioning, and straightforward stubborn bloody mindedness.

I know that one respected festival was turned down because their application was for a project that would not start until August 2021. It was turned down purely based on the proposed timeline being too far into the future. Yet people handwring over "but whyyyyy did this festival not receive funding!"

Handwring? I know several people who are on their fucking knees and whose only hope is next year's festival season. The Towersey festival, or 'project' as you call it, has been held in August for the past 56 years.