A report in this week's Stage suggests that Royal Opera House chairman Sir Colin Southgate may be considering leaving his post after his letter to the DCMS setting out the House's need for double the amount of funding was replied to in newspaper reports. His letter had been leaked, it is thought, by Whitehall.
The new members of the Arts Council appointed last week will serve for three years, it has been agreed. Those who were previously members will serve for two. No members of the council are paid.
The Redgrave Theatre, Farnham, goes under the auctioneer's hammer on 7th July after Farnham Theatre Productions went into liquidation with debts of £213,000.
ACE deputy chief executive Graham Devlin has dropped hints of how ACE is regarding the future at the Independent Theatre Council's summer conference. "No more equal misery for all," he announced, and went on to say that the ability of a company to survive must not be an excuse to ignore their needs. He also said, "Few, if any, organisations are receiving enough funding. We need to have the courage to take tough decisions."
An Arts Council report, International Data on Public Spending on the Arts, reveals that the UK, which spends £16.60 per head of population, is seventh out of ten countries surveyed, ahead of the USA, Ireland and Australia. Other European countries - Finland, France, Germany, Sweden and Holland - all spend more than the UK, with Finland spending most at £59.20 a head. The US was bottom of the table, spending only £3.80.
Pubic money accounted for about 50% of UK theatres' income, whereas in the US the figure was 7%. In Germany, theatres received 85% of their money from public sources, and Dutch theatres 90%.
The Dutch version of Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking (called Shoppen und Ficken) was so popular at the 1998 Holland Festival in Amsterdam that an extra night had to be added to the run before the show even opened.