As his play Best Of Enemies premieres in London’s West End, British playwright and TV writer James Graham believe that the entertainment industry will feel the effects of cuts to the theatre business.
Could your favorite Netflix programs be affected by theatre sector funding cuts? Could a decline in spending on opera have a significant impact on properties like Star Wars?
James Graham, a leading British dramatist, warns that it is something most people don’t consider when reading about arts funding cuts, but they should.
Graham, whose plays include the Tony-nominated Ink, Privacy, and Quiz – about the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? coughing scandal, which he adapted into a TV series in 2020 – claims that recent cuts in London by Arts Council England and the cost of living crisis will have a significant impact on the “pipeline” of the entertainment industry.
He stated: “Even if you don’t attend the opera, you may not realize the training that artists, writers, technicians, and scenic designers receive – they all go on to work for Netflix and Star Wars films.
“In the next 18 to 24 months, I believe the depletion and decline of arts across television, theatre, and music will have a significant influence. It is also irritating.”
Earlier in November, Arts Council England announced a “leveling up” investment of £43.5 million outside of London to support “art, culture, and creativity for more people in more places throughout the country.”
However, subsidies in the capital have been slashed, including for the English National Opera.
Supporters assert that the rebalancing is long needed, but others assert that the move will negatively affect some of the United Kingdom’s most significant cultural institutions.
Graham, who grew up in Nottingham as a “working class child,” acknowledged that “these are challenging points to make in a terrible atmosphere” as individuals struggle to heat their houses and feed their families owing to rising prices.
“However, the arts are one of the primary economic drivers in Britain,” he remarked. “I reject the idea that funding the arts is at the expense of hospitals, as investments in the arts pay for hospital beds and a robust culture industry pays for teacher salaries.
“They continue to discuss development… we are a tremendously growing industry. As well as keeping in mind that stories, television dramas, plays, and musicals have an emotional and sociological impact on our culture, we must also remember that. They make us better, more sympathetic people for a very, very low price.
He noted that the arts “ultimately yield more than they cost, in all aspects — financial, emotional, and societal cohesiveness.” “Essentially, it prints money and returns it to the government.”
Best Of Enemies, Graham’s most recent political drama, starring Zachary Quinto as Gore Vidal and David Harewood as William F. Buckley Jr. It examines their violent political rivalry and historic battles that reshaped political discussions and revolutionized current affairs programming.
“The play centers on these discussions, the very first live broadcast debates shown on ABC between two intellectuals, one from the left and one from the right,” said Harewood, best known for Homeland. “And it ended up being the most-watched election-related program ever. It relates to politics. It concerns ideas. It focuses on personal hostility.
“It is quite amusing. I believe that… reveals a great deal about the state of current politics.”
Quinto, who appeared in American Horror Story and Spock in the rebooted Star Trek movie, stated: “The journey from where this began to where we are now can be traced in a way that is, in a sense, both exhilarating and frightening.
“Alarming in the sense that we now inhabit an almost echo chamber-generated environment. We listen to only what we want to hear, ignoring everything else.”
