Nnot every Welsh valley can echo with choral singing and recited poetry, despite the stereotype. But leading figures in Welsh culture warn that a different environment is looming: “An alien landing in the country today would look around and think, ‘Wow, there really seems to be an awful lot of trouble here for all the arts,'” said Graham Farrow.
Farrow, artistic director at the Wales Millennium Center (WMC), fears that instead of a landscape of fertile creativity, any visiting alien will face the near-collapse of a series of national institutions, including the National Theater of Wales, Welsh National Opera and S4C, the Welsh television channel which lost its first boss, Cian Doyle, a year ago over a dispute over allegations of harassment and then another, Linos Griffin-Williams, amid allegations of abusive behavior at a rugby match.
“Everywhere you turn, it doesn’t look pretty,” Farrow added. There has also been a nervous build-up to winter as arts organizations prepare to learn details next week of Wales’ latest draft arts budget.
The Arts Council Wales has suffered a 40% real cut in funding since 2010. ever, its chief Dafydd Rhys complained last month, expressing serious concern that the sector would disappear within a decade. “I doubt very much that much of it will be there in 10 years, except that it might be in the hands of some very wealthy benefactors and it won’t be available to everyone at an affordable price,” he added.
Rhys hoped to influence the forthcoming Budget by delivering a report showing that for every pound spent on art in Wales, £2.51 goes back into the economy.
This weekend the award-winning Welsh actor Michael Sheen supported the call for more resources. He believes it would be an “outrage” if further funding cuts hit the ailing arts sector. “We have to do something about it,” he said. “We’re not going to sit here and let people take everything away from us. We need to make sure our voices are heard.”
The importance of Welsh storytelling became clear to the Port Talbot actor, he said, when he took on the role of national political hero Aneurin Bevan in the play Mosta show created in collaboration between WMC and London’s National Theatre.
Attitudes towards the Welsh language are at the heart of some of the current struggles. Griffin-Williams resigned from S4C after allegedly telling former rugby star Mike Phillips that his skills in Wales were not up to par.
Meanwhile, the artistic director of the National Theater Wales, Lorne Campbell, stepped down this spring following controversy sparked by the complete cut of Arts Council Wales’ core funding last year. The National Theater of Wales performs in English and therefore accused the funding body of “dismantling the English-speaking National Theater of Wales” before an official inspection took place.
At least Farrow and WMC have something close to home to celebrate this week. Cardiff’s cultural center is thriving and reached its 20th anniversary last Wednesday, marking the date with the unveiling of a poem by the country’s national poet Hanan Issa. Her verse, Dreams Buildingpays tribute to the already famous poetic line – “In these stones horizons sing” – inscribed on the glass and tile facade of the center. It was composed two decades ago by Issa’s predecessor, Gwyneth Lewis.
The upbeat tone of the new poem is justified by WMC’s feat of keeping its head above water and making some money while the surrounding cultural terrain is ravaged by cuts and self-inflicted blows. This month there were crowds flocking, for example, to see Hamiltonthe latest in a series of popular musicals at WMC’s theater that have helped draw 1.8 million visitors annually.
But Farrow is far from complacent as he waits to hear about the latest budget. When the draft financial regulations are published on December 10, even the WMC will have to brace itself against a flurry of financial challenges. “The situation is quite acute,” he said. “We’ve only succeeded by building an audience with our more commercial shows. But at best it will be static funding from here on out and we need to find new ways to make money. But it is very difficult for these organizations with fewer levers to pull. It forces them to the edge.”
WMC’s local companies include the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Welsh National Opera and the National Dance Company Wales, as well as the country’s literary and music agencies. It also just announced plans for a stand-alone digital venue for immersive arts.
“We are an organization that is 85% full and that has put us in a good position,” said Farrow, the man behind the 2013 Derry/Londonderry City of Culture events. “It’s about building an audience, whether for the Welsh National Opera or Hamilton. But this creates a bad dynamic in the absence of funds and creates a false divide between commercial and subsidized theatre. You usually get a milder diet with no new things popping up.
“Museums have different problems, but there is a common theme. It’s reaching a tipping point and there’s a class of freelancers who just can’t find work now. The building costs a million pounds more to run and our insurance has gone up by £200,000. This may force producers to make safer bets, although the strength of the publicly subsidized sector must be that you can take risks.
And Wales bears the brunt. Research commissioned by performing arts union Equity revealed this summer that overall arts funding in Wales has fallen by 30% since 2017. so far, compared with a fall of 11% in England, 16% in Northern Ireland and a 2% increase in Scotland.
An open letter signed by 175 artists – including Sheen, singers Bryn Terfel and Katherine Jenkins and actor Ruth Jones – called for emergency funding for Welsh National Opera this spring after the company suffered funding cuts from both the English and Welsh arts councils.
In response, the Welsh Government recently offered an additional £1.5 million in funding.
He said he was “determined” that the current financial challenges would not limit his “long-term ambitions”. But it stressed that its budget now costs up to £700m less in real terms than it did in 2021.
