Andy Richardson: 'While live entertainment nears its death throes, the Government continues its pantomime'
Whither Britain’s Secretary of Culture. Oliver Dowden has been besieged by rock stars and actors, theatre administrators and the 300,000 who will lose their jobs as the Government lets the entertainment sector crumble to dust.
Unlike Boris’s world-beating contact tracing app (latest figures, 75 per cent of people not contacted), quarantine measures for UK airport users (not worth it, according to a former Transport Minister), data that can prevent local spikes (buried or missing) and the scandal surrounding care homes (no words), the arts are genuinely world-beating.
A driver of economic growth, a generator of tax receipts, a provider of employment, they spawn the world’s biggest rock stars, best actors, finest movies and more.
They are in meltdown.
With no date set by the Government, redundancies and venue closures have begun. Seventy per cent of theatres will close this year if they’re neither allowed to trade nor given grants.
Enter Oliver Dowden, whose actions are the opposite of Rishi Sunak. While Britain’s exceptional Chancellor saved a quarter of Britain’s workforce, providing furlough for around nine million, Dowdon mimics his boss, the PM, by trotting out meaningless platitudes and drawing up back-of-a-fag-packet plans.
“I understand,” he says, which is about as helpful as Dominic Cumming’s SatNav when he types in Specsavers. “I am pushing hard,” he says, convincing no one after more than 100 days of zero trade, zero revenue and wholesale sectoral collapse.
The arts is not the only sector that is being led across the precipice by the Government – not allowed to trade or generate revenue, they have no alternative but to axe staff, close doors or file for insolvency and hope that their beautiful buildings aren’t turned into pubs, buffet restaurants or new homes under Boris’s Build Build Build programme.
Others are in dire straits. After 12,000 job losses in two days, the economy feels like a chocolate teapot left out in the sun. We are heading for the worst unemployment levels since the early 1980s.
It’s the tip of the iceberg. Things are going to get much worse.
The show must go on, however, and while live entertainment will near its death throes, the Government continues its pantomime.
