If You Had £400k to Spend on the Arts…
Following recent revelations, HIP asked three Hastings creatives what they would do if let loose with a chunk of taxpayer’s money.
A poverty of ideals
JOHN KNOWLES, writer, producer and theatre-maker challenges us to think about the purpose of culture.
I grew up in Liverpool, socialist capital of the UK. I grew up knowing what poverty was, I grew up knowing that the ruling party in the country I lived in hated us. Hated us for being bolshy, for not towing the line and for being the first out on strike, the last back to work. I knew then as I do now that I was supposed to know my place. My school offered careers advice on two levels – which factory do you want to work in, or which branch of the services. When I said I wanted to go to art school, the careers advisor tossed aside his pile of pamphlets and said: ‘Ok, good luck with that’.
I went to art school for two reasons: my parents and The Everyman Youth Theatre. My parents always wanted me to ‘better myself’ and while my first-class degree has more to do with them, my attitude has more to do with The Everyman Youth Theatre – that hotbed of creativity, that thrust young minds into a bear pit of artists, writers, musicians, poets and mavericks. The Everyman was as far away from the sanitised world of ‘jazz hands’ and ‘being a triple threat’ as you could get. Here we learnt one thing above all: you are someone, you have a voice -and – in my case, ‘you are going to be a writer’.
The poverty of ideals and vision is more harmful to a place and community than almost anything else, and I have to say since the sad loss of Labour Council leader Jeremy Birch, this town has lacked a vision. The council have constantly run away from ownership and have put their faith in snake oil pedlars or the easiest way out. The Pier, St Mary in the Castle, The White Rock Theatre –assets which should have put us on the map, handed over to some of the least competent management teams it’s been my misfortune to ever encounter… and don’t get me started on OWENS, that ‘leisure centre’ that, like rock, had ‘due to fail’ written all the way through it.
I’m not an idiot. I realise that capital is important, but so is a vision of what that capital should be for. Education and self-belief are at the core of change, if you don’t believe me, go and check out Eton, believe you are better than anyone else – you are the ruling class. This is a town which carps on about The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist holding it aloft like a sun-bleached flag of dissent whilst failing to understand what the book is about: education. Last year I visited one of the poorest wards in Liverpool, Prescot, where we performed The Twelfth Night Trilogy in the brand-new Shakespeare North Playhouse(a studio space, gallery/music space, outdoor performance area, two bars and a cafe all wrapped around a replica of The Globe Theatre). The people who came admitted that they’d never been before ‘My wife made me come’. They were genuine locals, eager to support this new venture. And as they left our show, they went straight to the box office to see what they could see next. The statistics for the first year are impressive, not just the middle class of Liverpool but locals and people driving for miles to come and see Shakespeare. Yes, Shakespeare.
I know the council think that a leisure water splash pool is what locals want, but when I went to the Everyman, a working-class kid from a comprehensive school, saw Brecht, Bleasdale, Dario Fo. If you had asked me what I wanted I wouldn’t have said any of that, because why would I, nobody had given me the choice. Nobody had believed that I could sit enthralled by words, by actors who took me in as a friend, by activists who believed that just because I was poor didn’t mean I had a poverty of ideals. Where I ask is the Tressell Arts Theatre, where is the possibility of a kid like me growing up in Hastings, not in the DFL hotbed of St Leonards, but in Ore, Silverhill, Tressell, stepping into a real theatre and finding that they are someone, they have a voice and that theatre isn’t a middle class enclave. Every-man should have the opportunity to explore the arts and theatre, Everyman should have the right to a fuller vision of who they can be.
Art is happening right now
TARA REDDY, the founding director of ArtsonPrescription.org set up AOP in 2019 precisely in response to why, in a creative town, there was a huge gap between areas of engagement in arts and culture across the Hastings community.
I think the town centre could do with an uplift. Hastings will now have yet another large empty property and homelessness is increasing.
There are many voluntary led services across Hastings supporting residents improve their well-being and Arts on Prescription (AOP) is one of them. Most of these services are struggling to keep going, yet without them many people will be falling through the already wide net as government funds decrease.
AOP receive no support from Hastings Borough Council and yet we are working with vulnerable adults and families and making a huge positive impact on their lives.
Sustainability for many groups like AOP is reliant on funding which means constant bid writing to source funds, and this is not easy when also working on the ground delivering services.
Many local fund writers require huge fees upfront and their bids are not always successful, therefore grassroot organisations often fold despite a clear evidence of need.
Having an HBC funding officer who can provide free support to voluntary organisations to source and access funds would be a forward-thinking investment.
Having a dedicated role responsible for supporting organisations that are evidencing need and demonstrating positive improvements to the community is something I would welcome.
ArtsOnPrescription is a team of professional artists and wellbeing practitioners delivering a wide range of inclusive creative activities online, from GP spaces and from Art in the Park, our new volunteer-led hub in Alexandra Park. [email protected]
It’s all about performance!
NEVILLE KURT, a retired Hastings resident with a background in broadcast tv, theatre and film, thinks we need more performance.
Hastings, as we all know, is a very creative and arty town. It is fairly well served regarding provision for the visual arts, music and film. However, as far as the performing arts are concerned, it falls sadly short. There are considered to be only two local theatres; The White Rock, which was built as a (thousand-seater) concert venue, with a fairly unusable basement space and The Stables, primarily an amateur theatre with a relatively inflexible space.
In contrast, Eastbourne, a town with only a slightly larger population, has five! In fact, even Bexhill, Rye and Tunbridge Wells are better catered for. There is a general belief that there is a need for more venues, particularly as the demographic of people moving to and living in Hastings, has radically altered over the past few years.
Four hundred thousand pounds could have created a small scale, professionally run and designed, theatre-centric arts centre (obviously not built from scratch, but by converting an appropriate space). By that I mean not another multi-purpose community centre, (although admittedly we don’t have enough of those), but one that is exclusively focussed on the performing arts.
The creation of a sub 150 seater space with a further studio space for around 40, along with a couple of other small studio/rehearsal room spaces would provide not only massive opportunities for performance (including dance, music and film), but also, given the significant lack of provision for young people locally, the chance for them to engage with professionals and get involved in all aspects relating to the performing arts.
There are numerous local groups who would jump at the possibilities of creating and contributing to the running of a small-scale professional theatre/performance venue somewhere in Hastings/St Leonards. They would include people with the complementary skills necessary to make this a viable project; including professional theatre practitioners, educationalists and arts administrators.
This would be a significant opportunity to add to the cultural profile and provide a much-needed theatrical offering in the process. Can we make it happen?
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Another great HIP feature which contains lots of interesting ideas. John is right to say that the Town lacks a vision, there’s plenty going on in the Town in terms of art, music, design, illustration and all types of creativity but it’s stuck at a certain level as there simply isn’t the spaces to deliver high quality work.
St.Mary for me is where I would spend money as this is a £100m building if you tried to build it today. This is the place which could be the home for opera, dance and theatre groups, and perhaps the Hastings Piano competition. It could be a world class venue, like the De La Warr, if it has the right management. And it is the Council’s responsibility to ensure such vulnerable buildings are maintained, this is why we have councils.
It’s frustrating to see this amazing building written off when the cost of a lesser alternative is perhaps £20m and 5-10 years away. A Council that can propose to sell this asset off for £500k clearly has no understanding of the arts and there lies the problem.
A starting point is of course Council dialogue with the likes of John, Tara and Neville.