Good week / Bad week

Good week for the arts. The spending review on Wednesday unveiled a 15% cut to front line arts organisations, much better than doom-mongers had been prophesying.

Bad week for Arts Council England. The organisation’s overall budget will be cut by 30% which, when you factor in the front line cuts being limited to 15%, means that they’ll either have to find “magic calculators” or reduce its admin budget pretty significantly, which might be a challenge for an organisation which is not exactly famous for its focus on efficiency.

Good week for theatre programmes and reviews. Michael Billington and Richard Eyre think they’re worthwhile. Sometimes.

Bad week for brilliant young playwrights.  Nick Kohen writes in The Guardian that “if the National Theatre announces it has found a brilliant young playwright, you know without needing to be told that his or her politics will be a faintly hypocritical and unforgivably shallow version of liberal-leftism”.  So there.