Ok. I’m trying to be hopeful and optimistic. I’m on the Freelance Task Force and I intend to do what I can to open conversations within the industry and beyond about the value of the arts and its workers. But do I think the govt is going to bail out theatre? No.

We tried the economic argument when the cuts started under the coalition govt. but this is damaging the economy! We cried. We make £4 for every £1 invested! We wailed. We tried ‘engaging them on their terms.’ It didn’t work.

Because fundamentally they Do Not Care. That money we make? It doesn’t go into their pockets it goes back into the pot for the rest of society. And they don’t care about that pot. They care about their own pockets.

They care about shares and shareholders, banks, big business, oil. Because it doesn’t matter how much the arts bolsters ‘the economy’ A lot of them are betting *against* the economy. Brexit is a case in point. Investors stand to gain hugely because they have bet against us.

(This is a huge oversimplification. I’m not an economist. Read the articles). So that economic argument doesn’t work. So what happens if we make all these people redundant and then have to support them via the welfare state? Won’t that cost us?

Again, it won’t cost THEM. Plus the welfare state is being systematically dismantled and universal credit means many people won’t be eligible anyway. And where benefits are paid, via the public purse, they go straight back to private landlords.

So in many ways unemployment doesn’t harm those at the top of the pile. So they don’t care. So economic arguments aren’t going to save us. What about our value, though? What about our benefit to citizens and communities? What about the betterment of society?

Well they don’t care about that either. Because the UK doesn’t really care. When I lived in Paris there were countless TV programmes about culture and live performance. New gallery openings were reported on the news, artists are paid a basic living wage during fallow months.

‘The Arts’ are a valued part of daily life. They’re not here. We’ve all seen the surveys. The surveys don’t help us. If you ask who is more valuable, an artist or a doctor, who are you going to pick? It’s the wrong fucking question.

Ask if you want to live without music. Without TV. Without books. Ask if your life is better or worse because you can dance or watch a movie. That’s the survey we need. (Fuck it I might try to make that survey). Because unless we win *that* argument we’re sunk.

That argument is about voters. It’s about whether or not people vote for a government who will allow us to continue serving society by providing books and films and music and television and yes, theatre and dance and visual art. It’s about how the latter feed the former.

The Tories DO NOT CARE about the economics, they DO NOT CARE about the value & they HATE US because, let’s face it, most of us are poor left wing, labour voting, remainers. Unless they think they will, themselves, suffer as a result of losing the arts, nothing’s going to change.

Maybe I’m wrong. And I’m really happy to be proved wrong. But I suspect the most likely scenario is that the biggest organisations (the ones the Americans would frown about if they collapsed): the ROH, NT, Globe... will be helped.

Prob in the form of loans & tax relief. And then they’ll reopen the rest & call it magnanimity. This pandemic is a gift. It allows them to shake their heads sadly & say ‘sacrifices had to be made.’ And the public will agree because art is not sewn into the fabric of our society.

So there’s your answer. Get people to understand our value. Because they do value the arts, they just don’t know what they value *is* the arts. How we do that, though? I don’t know. But I do know it’s not by playing their game or speaking their language.