Dave Moutrey is about to start full time as Manchester’s Director of Culture after many years running HOME. And he has strong views about who art should be for
I think Dave is a great person, and a great ambassador. I don't, however, agree that the middle class have colonised the arts - rather, I believe that the philistine position of successive governments and the lack of support for the arts has created the environment where the middle class are keeping the arts in existence. Either of these views does, of course, lead to the same bad outcome, but let's not blame the dedicated audiences and supporters for where we've ended up.
I appreciate I can speak only for myself, but: I would absolutely think of my younger self as working class (council house, more siblings than rooms, 3-generations in a terrace etc etc). I've been fortunate enough that, even at my chippiest, I couldn't argue that I'm not now middle class. I'm a member of or donator to most arts organisations in Manchester. I do not do that because I want to colonise them - I do it because I want to help ensure their continued existence, their outreach work, their role in education. I don't want influence, or productions solely for 'people like me' - I want to try to help, in some modest way, to keep all venues and companies accessible to everyone.
I've seen Dave at numerous events where he is surrounded by the middle class people that make the donations, buy the memberships, support the discounted tickets for schools and the low paid/unwaged. It's critical that everyone gets to come through the door of HOME, and the Bridgewater, and Hope Mill, and The Lowry, and Aviva Studio...let's just be careful about who we blame for how difficult it is to achieve that.
The problem with the arts not being accessible to the working classes is a perennial one. There is an additional problem in Manchester in that there are far too many gatekeepers and for all his words on ‘I actually do give a shit about the arts and culture’ and how much it matters to him, Dave is one of them. Promoting him to chief cultural gatekeeper will not solve that problem - it will only make it worse. If someone has been in the arts sector for decades and overseen much of the decline in accessibility nothing is going to change now unless something is done to break the stranglehold and throw the gates open to everyone. Banging on about having a working class background is not going to change that one bit. Nobody cares where you’re from. What they care about is what you have to contribute.
Nothing cultural happens in Manchester without the tacit acceptance of somebody in one of the inner circles. From Maxine Peake getting one of her mediocre plays put on at the Royal Exchange because she’s personal friends with the creative director to Sacha Lord’s exclusivity contracts with artists performing at his venues. If it’s not tedious ex punks endlessly ligging around the indie scene it’s the old Hacienda bores going on about how things were ‘back in the day’ and the constant river of tripe that passes for entirely risk free, conformist political activist theatre. You can’t even open a restaurant in Manchester without some boorish lout giving it his seal of approval. Even Burnham gets in on the act. Anybody remember his Artist of the Month scheme, where some hapless indie band would be hand picked by him and therefore virtually guaranteeing their obscurity? Tip for emerging artists: if a centrist politician desperately seeking kudos endorses you, you’re dead in the water. If the arts and culture in Manchester was any more incestuous social services would have to be called in.
Cornerhouse used to be somewhere people would just go to and hang out and things developed organically from there. When Cornerhouse shut its doors much of Manchester’s culture died. HOME didn’t even try to serve the Library Theatre audience and it’s not unreasonable to say that the ridiculous Soviet garden centre concrete statue of Engels (tell me again that culture in Manchester isn’t ‘astoundingly political’) serves as a useful tombstone to remind us of that. Culture in Manchester is as dead as his ideology.
MIF used to be something genuinely innovative but the last couple have brought nothing at all to the city and could have been held in any town or city in the Western world. In earlier years MIF brought us Kenneth Branagh in Macbeth - a truly world beating production, and theatre that featured Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe. The last MIF brought us fluffy toys with polka dots and the simultaneous opening of Aviva studios gave us an adaption of The Matrix, an overrated sci-fi B Movie which achieved cult status with internet nerds, virgins and rabbit-hole conspiracy theorists
Aviva has come in massively over budget and so far shown nothing of any real merit. People should be nervous about that and in this interview we are given no indication of what the future holds for the arts in Manchester and beyond. Sticking the name ‘Factory’ in front of of it was a tacit admission that Manchester is out of ideas. There’s only so many Hacienda throwbacks you can cram in and people are tired of it. Tony Wilson’s corpse should be left to rest in peace and we should maybe start looking to other cultural figures from the past for inspiration. You could get in a cab outside Aviva and five minutes later you’d be outside the address on the Duchy estate where Shelagh Delaney, a genuine working class hero, wrote A Taste of Honey. There may be another writer just like her on that very same estate but as things stand now she might as well be living in another country. There could be another Anthony Burgess somewhere in Harpurhey, another Howard Jacobson in Prestwich, a Jeanette Winterson in Accrington, a Caroline Aherne in Wythenshawe or a Lemn Sissay in Wigan. The fact is, we’ll probably never know and the great Mancunian twenty-first century work of literature or play or poem or BAFTA winning screenplay will sit on a hard drive forever because the opportunities just aren’t there any more.
Aviva has the opportunity to be something big and important and the ENO coming here should be a safe pair of hands which will bring people to its doors and give the impetus for others to snap out of their torpor and step up a bit. Otherwise, it will be nothing more than a huge white elephant. The sponsors will withdraw, nothing will be left in its place and we’ll be left with what Tony Wilson’s Factory was - a failed business model. How ironic.
In his interview, Dave says he’s trying to work out what the people of Manchester want. Well, why don’t you just ask. We’re right here you know.
As a child of the 80s, growing up in New Moston, (with very little access to theatre or live music), my first experience of the arts came via my primary school, with opportunities to learn the violin and perform contemporary dance and movement. We were taught during the school day and had the chance to take part in concerts and productions at venues including RNCM, Trinity High School in the (very far away and exotic) south Manchester, and at some of the smaller theatres and venues
in and around the city. Our school was a little rough round the edges, and the kids were mainly from council estates, and two up two down terraced houses in the north Manchester locality, many with parents who had never been to the theatre. I remember feeling so ‘special’ and excited by the prospect of performing live and in front of an audience, being given a special tie to wear for something called the Manchester Junior Showcase, prancing about in a floaty costume as ‘Jupiter’ in the Zodiac of Angels, accompanied by a live orchestra, and really believing I could become a musician or a dancer or just something creative in my future life. That spark of interest and enthusiasm, the joy it brought and the feeling of ‘I’m part of this exciting new world’ was, and remains, so important to kids from all backgrounds and cultures. Giving them the power and motivation to learn and feel the joy that the arts bring and to
understand they have permission to expresss and create. I really hope Dave can see the value in pushing all forms of creativity into the education system across GM, really nurturing and encouraging these young people. Covid has taken so much away in terms of social and cultural experiences for this generation of children and young people and he has a real opportunity to help remedy that, through the gift of arts education and development. Good luck Dave, do them proud!
(Footnote: I did not become a musician nor a dancer, however I still very much enjoy all aspects of the arts, as well as giving back in my role as director for Oldham Theatre Workshop Friends!)
I worked as a volunteer, as did all the other staff, for the Manchester Youth Theatre in the 1970s and 80’s. This provided a theatre experience, based on the model of the National Youth Theatre, for a whole range of young people across the social spectrum. It was a fantastic experience for them. Most didn’t go on to work in theatre but I’m pretty sure it engendered a love of it. One or two did go on to become well known actors or take other roles in theatre. Youth Theatres became less important as drama in schools increased but now drama is not seen as important in the curriculum by the current government.
The young people performed at least one Shakespeare play, often at The Library Theatre or the Forum. They rehearsed in Hulme.
I suppose these days teachers wouldn’t be able to do this ( too exhausted) or be given 2 weeks off at the start of the school year for the shows but the venues mentioned in the article could be used and funding explored? There might even be Youth Theatre Alumni such as David Threlfall and Leslie Sharp who would give some time? There could be drama students at the Universities who would like to gain experience in directing?
Interest in theatre and other arts needs to be engendered when people are young.
Costs are of course another issue. Tickets are so expensive but I was pleased to be able to take my grandson to Aviva Studios show at half price.
I went to the Library Theatre a lot but have never been to Home. Nothing to do with needing to dumb down just that the shows at first did not appeal to people who had supported the Library Theatre. Too Avantgarde and too aimed at students?
In my view, the last time we saw truly diverse audiences and large scale public involvement in the arts was twenty years ago with the Streets Ahead festivals. These were staged each summer across Greater Manchester by a tiny team at Manchester International Arts and with a small budget compared to today’s excesses. They were mostly outdoor and mostly free but they brought us spectacular sights from across Europe. They attracted enormous audiences and also involved lots of local people - parades were to take part in, not to just watch and at one event 1000 salsa drummers from across Greater Manchester performed in Castlefield Bowl! Dave Moutrey will remember these amazing times and likely have participated in some of these events. Let’s hope we can bring back some of this true spirit and ethos of arts for everyone.
Well, that is a well spiced read Robert Pegg, & whilst I’m not sure Jacobson or Winterson would be happy to meet their successors quite yet, I am never anything but delighted to hear Shelagh Delaney invoked. The number, relative diversity and length of these comments might, with any luck, persuade Joshi Herrmann (for it is he who needs persuading) that a great deal more coverage of arts & culture, will likely bring complementary numbers of subscribers to his Mill.
Dave Moutrey is an honourable man who speaks his mind in a soft North East accent. He’s an asset to Manchester, and one that doesn’t wrap itself in layers of self-promotion masquerading as the general good. He is not smug. He’s not constantly waving semaphoric value-signals.
Dave Moutrey is more Abraham Moss than Soho House, more Zion Arts than Serpentine pavilion. He has not skipped from board to trustee board, to posh dinner to White Cube opening, on his way to his OBE. He’s always been more HOME than Royal Academy. I heartily disagreed with him about the Cornerhouse move from Oxford Road to Tony Wilson place. I was entirely wrong, he was completely right. I admire him and sincerely hope that in his new full time roll as Manchester’s Director of Culture he is able to continue to bridge gaps in arts access, equalise funding, and lower the stuck-up noses of some of the people who have, largely by the efforts of others, cornered media interest.
Great things have happened in this city for decades, centuries even. Our cultural life did not begin with a festival in 2007. Nor with a night club in 1982. Nor did it all kick off in the Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976. Account must be made of (amongst others) the Bernstein’s choice of Manchester for Granada in 1956, of John Barbirolli’s rebuilding of the Hallé after the war, and of the Library Theatre itself. Dave Moutrey knows these things, and Dave Moutrey has talents and virtues lacking in many of his arts peers. He is an honourable man.
Opera was performed in Hulme in the early 1900s at the Playhouse theatre (currently tenanted by Niamos). There were plays in French in Hulme Hippodrome next door.
Despite cutbacks and general underfunding in the arts nationally I think this is great that Manchester is going to have a full time Director of Culture - and personally I believe the ENO move to Manchester has such a lot of possibilities - particularly developing collaborative projects with Manchester schools. As a head of music in the mid 80s in Manchester we had an amazing project with Glyndbourne with singers and a young director Stephen Medcalfe undertaking a summer term residency at the school working with year 9 students on 'Katya Kabanova'. We also worked on projects with Granada TV and the Manchester Music Service. I'm now back in Manchester teaching music and drama at a girls school and absolutely believe passionately that if we want to develop future audiences schools, Manchester arts organisations and the tertiary sector such as RNCM and Salford and Manchester Universities need to work collaboratively on different scales of projects.
This is interesting. I do think money has a lot to do with the arts being colonised by the middle class.
I grew up in The Bronx to a lower middle class immigrant family in the 60s, when a 15 cent subway token could take you to all sorts of theatre at less than the cost of a pint. The NY Shakespeare Festival had free outdoor shows in Central Park all summer, where as a teenager I saw James Earl Jones playing Macbeth, in what must have been one of the first examples of colour blind casting. They also toured the boroughs, setting up Shakespeare plays in parks in working class neighbourhoods. If you wanted to see any kind of show on Broadway, you could get a ticket in the upper circle for $5, so a wider range of people had access to theatre . It would be fantastic to have something like that here in Greater Manchester, although who would fund it?
My feeling is that since the Library Theatre closed, and now with the loss of Oldham Coliseum, there is a lack of a certain kind of naturalistic play that isn't dumbed down but that is accessible. Those were the staples of the Library Theatre, which was an intimate venue that did a brilliant job on a shoestring. I have seen some excellent theatre at HOME and at the Royal Exchange but particularly at Manchester International Festival I feel that it's too avant-garde for the likes of me. Maybe it's my age, but some years I can't find anything that appeals to me in its programme.
I saw Hamilton last week, where there was an incredibly enthusiastic full house of a wide range of people of all ages. Hamilton is challenging in that it's about figures in American history that few British people know anything about, and it's essentially an opera, albeit in hip hop. But if it's entertaining...and Hamilton is a phenomenon that has had huge buzz so there aren't many other productions like that...people will spend the money and come.
My children, now adults, were lucky when they attended state schools in Stockport and had free music tuition and loan of instruments as well as opportunities to act in plays (usually musicals and one Gilbert and Sullivan operetta) when they were at the local comprehensive. I don't think this is available to state school pupils now.
If the middle classes have 'colonised' the arts, it must be due to them having the time, energy and money to devote to them. Education is also a factor. I was introduced to classical music at primary school when a recording of Chopin's Military Polonaise was played as we all marched into morning assembly. Later on I attended grammar school where my musical education was extended via 2 music teachers for a school of around 800 pupils. You wouldn't get that ratio today in a state school as 13 years of austerity have resulted in drastic cutbacks to musical education.
Just before Christmas I attended a concert at the Bridgewater Hall where the Halle Orchestra performed music composed by the techno DJ and producer, Jeff Mills - with Jeff Mills present in person and playing the drum machine alongside the orchestra. It attracted an audience of all ages ranging from me aged 70 to young people. It was a fab performance with a great atmosphere. I hope that the arrival of ENO will see similar creative ways of raising the profile of opera.
Mention is made in one of the comments about Hamilton. Is Hamilton part of the Arts?
The performances, as many at the Palace and Opera House, are full every night, at seat prices much higher than many arts venues, with many people who, I'm guessing, wouldn't call themselves middle class.
'Our cultural life (in Manchester) did not begin with a festival in 2007, nor with a nightclub in 1982' ...how right you are Phil.
I loved the Library Theatre and The Free Trade Hall in the 60s and early 70s. We didn't have huge venues to hear and experience contemporary music then though, we had to make do with cinemas putting on pop acts or 'gigs' as they're referred to now if they weren't playing the FTH. A more intimate affair and definitely a deeper connection was forged with the artist, I feel.
! manchesters parochial audience? i dont think so. if all else fails blame the people
2 the transition from the library theater to home has been a real tragedy for theater ; they did plays which had resonance with a wide audience .
3 if you take 50% of the young people out of their home environment to go to university elsewhere its unsurprising that the remainder have a limited appreciation of a culture which is not part of their everyday experience. The experience of the grandfather is totally irrelevant( i write as someone who can also quote in aid working class grand and parents but choose not to).
4 on a financial note why should an art form which is enjoyed by a very small group of people ( opera) receive public subsidy at the level it does when other forms of cultural experience( football) get nothing?
A question for David Moutrey he might be able to answer in these comments: does his newly expanded roll as MCC’s full time Director of Culture include in his remit Factory International and MIF?
I think Dave is a great person, and a great ambassador. I don't, however, agree that the middle class have colonised the arts - rather, I believe that the philistine position of successive governments and the lack of support for the arts has created the environment where the middle class are keeping the arts in existence. Either of these views does, of course, lead to the same bad outcome, but let's not blame the dedicated audiences and supporters for where we've ended up.
I appreciate I can speak only for myself, but: I would absolutely think of my younger self as working class (council house, more siblings than rooms, 3-generations in a terrace etc etc). I've been fortunate enough that, even at my chippiest, I couldn't argue that I'm not now middle class. I'm a member of or donator to most arts organisations in Manchester. I do not do that because I want to colonise them - I do it because I want to help ensure their continued existence, their outreach work, their role in education. I don't want influence, or productions solely for 'people like me' - I want to try to help, in some modest way, to keep all venues and companies accessible to everyone.
I've seen Dave at numerous events where he is surrounded by the middle class people that make the donations, buy the memberships, support the discounted tickets for schools and the low paid/unwaged. It's critical that everyone gets to come through the door of HOME, and the Bridgewater, and Hope Mill, and The Lowry, and Aviva Studio...let's just be careful about who we blame for how difficult it is to achieve that.
The problem with the arts not being accessible to the working classes is a perennial one. There is an additional problem in Manchester in that there are far too many gatekeepers and for all his words on ‘I actually do give a shit about the arts and culture’ and how much it matters to him, Dave is one of them. Promoting him to chief cultural gatekeeper will not solve that problem - it will only make it worse. If someone has been in the arts sector for decades and overseen much of the decline in accessibility nothing is going to change now unless something is done to break the stranglehold and throw the gates open to everyone. Banging on about having a working class background is not going to change that one bit. Nobody cares where you’re from. What they care about is what you have to contribute.
Nothing cultural happens in Manchester without the tacit acceptance of somebody in one of the inner circles. From Maxine Peake getting one of her mediocre plays put on at the Royal Exchange because she’s personal friends with the creative director to Sacha Lord’s exclusivity contracts with artists performing at his venues. If it’s not tedious ex punks endlessly ligging around the indie scene it’s the old Hacienda bores going on about how things were ‘back in the day’ and the constant river of tripe that passes for entirely risk free, conformist political activist theatre. You can’t even open a restaurant in Manchester without some boorish lout giving it his seal of approval. Even Burnham gets in on the act. Anybody remember his Artist of the Month scheme, where some hapless indie band would be hand picked by him and therefore virtually guaranteeing their obscurity? Tip for emerging artists: if a centrist politician desperately seeking kudos endorses you, you’re dead in the water. If the arts and culture in Manchester was any more incestuous social services would have to be called in.
Cornerhouse used to be somewhere people would just go to and hang out and things developed organically from there. When Cornerhouse shut its doors much of Manchester’s culture died. HOME didn’t even try to serve the Library Theatre audience and it’s not unreasonable to say that the ridiculous Soviet garden centre concrete statue of Engels (tell me again that culture in Manchester isn’t ‘astoundingly political’) serves as a useful tombstone to remind us of that. Culture in Manchester is as dead as his ideology.
MIF used to be something genuinely innovative but the last couple have brought nothing at all to the city and could have been held in any town or city in the Western world. In earlier years MIF brought us Kenneth Branagh in Macbeth - a truly world beating production, and theatre that featured Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe. The last MIF brought us fluffy toys with polka dots and the simultaneous opening of Aviva studios gave us an adaption of The Matrix, an overrated sci-fi B Movie which achieved cult status with internet nerds, virgins and rabbit-hole conspiracy theorists
Aviva has come in massively over budget and so far shown nothing of any real merit. People should be nervous about that and in this interview we are given no indication of what the future holds for the arts in Manchester and beyond. Sticking the name ‘Factory’ in front of of it was a tacit admission that Manchester is out of ideas. There’s only so many Hacienda throwbacks you can cram in and people are tired of it. Tony Wilson’s corpse should be left to rest in peace and we should maybe start looking to other cultural figures from the past for inspiration. You could get in a cab outside Aviva and five minutes later you’d be outside the address on the Duchy estate where Shelagh Delaney, a genuine working class hero, wrote A Taste of Honey. There may be another writer just like her on that very same estate but as things stand now she might as well be living in another country. There could be another Anthony Burgess somewhere in Harpurhey, another Howard Jacobson in Prestwich, a Jeanette Winterson in Accrington, a Caroline Aherne in Wythenshawe or a Lemn Sissay in Wigan. The fact is, we’ll probably never know and the great Mancunian twenty-first century work of literature or play or poem or BAFTA winning screenplay will sit on a hard drive forever because the opportunities just aren’t there any more.
Aviva has the opportunity to be something big and important and the ENO coming here should be a safe pair of hands which will bring people to its doors and give the impetus for others to snap out of their torpor and step up a bit. Otherwise, it will be nothing more than a huge white elephant. The sponsors will withdraw, nothing will be left in its place and we’ll be left with what Tony Wilson’s Factory was - a failed business model. How ironic.
In his interview, Dave says he’s trying to work out what the people of Manchester want. Well, why don’t you just ask. We’re right here you know.
As a child of the 80s, growing up in New Moston, (with very little access to theatre or live music), my first experience of the arts came via my primary school, with opportunities to learn the violin and perform contemporary dance and movement. We were taught during the school day and had the chance to take part in concerts and productions at venues including RNCM, Trinity High School in the (very far away and exotic) south Manchester, and at some of the smaller theatres and venues
in and around the city. Our school was a little rough round the edges, and the kids were mainly from council estates, and two up two down terraced houses in the north Manchester locality, many with parents who had never been to the theatre. I remember feeling so ‘special’ and excited by the prospect of performing live and in front of an audience, being given a special tie to wear for something called the Manchester Junior Showcase, prancing about in a floaty costume as ‘Jupiter’ in the Zodiac of Angels, accompanied by a live orchestra, and really believing I could become a musician or a dancer or just something creative in my future life. That spark of interest and enthusiasm, the joy it brought and the feeling of ‘I’m part of this exciting new world’ was, and remains, so important to kids from all backgrounds and cultures. Giving them the power and motivation to learn and feel the joy that the arts bring and to
understand they have permission to expresss and create. I really hope Dave can see the value in pushing all forms of creativity into the education system across GM, really nurturing and encouraging these young people. Covid has taken so much away in terms of social and cultural experiences for this generation of children and young people and he has a real opportunity to help remedy that, through the gift of arts education and development. Good luck Dave, do them proud!
(Footnote: I did not become a musician nor a dancer, however I still very much enjoy all aspects of the arts, as well as giving back in my role as director for Oldham Theatre Workshop Friends!)
I worked as a volunteer, as did all the other staff, for the Manchester Youth Theatre in the 1970s and 80’s. This provided a theatre experience, based on the model of the National Youth Theatre, for a whole range of young people across the social spectrum. It was a fantastic experience for them. Most didn’t go on to work in theatre but I’m pretty sure it engendered a love of it. One or two did go on to become well known actors or take other roles in theatre. Youth Theatres became less important as drama in schools increased but now drama is not seen as important in the curriculum by the current government.
The young people performed at least one Shakespeare play, often at The Library Theatre or the Forum. They rehearsed in Hulme.
I suppose these days teachers wouldn’t be able to do this ( too exhausted) or be given 2 weeks off at the start of the school year for the shows but the venues mentioned in the article could be used and funding explored? There might even be Youth Theatre Alumni such as David Threlfall and Leslie Sharp who would give some time? There could be drama students at the Universities who would like to gain experience in directing?
Interest in theatre and other arts needs to be engendered when people are young.
Costs are of course another issue. Tickets are so expensive but I was pleased to be able to take my grandson to Aviva Studios show at half price.
I went to the Library Theatre a lot but have never been to Home. Nothing to do with needing to dumb down just that the shows at first did not appeal to people who had supported the Library Theatre. Too Avantgarde and too aimed at students?
In my view, the last time we saw truly diverse audiences and large scale public involvement in the arts was twenty years ago with the Streets Ahead festivals. These were staged each summer across Greater Manchester by a tiny team at Manchester International Arts and with a small budget compared to today’s excesses. They were mostly outdoor and mostly free but they brought us spectacular sights from across Europe. They attracted enormous audiences and also involved lots of local people - parades were to take part in, not to just watch and at one event 1000 salsa drummers from across Greater Manchester performed in Castlefield Bowl! Dave Moutrey will remember these amazing times and likely have participated in some of these events. Let’s hope we can bring back some of this true spirit and ethos of arts for everyone.
Well, that is a well spiced read Robert Pegg, & whilst I’m not sure Jacobson or Winterson would be happy to meet their successors quite yet, I am never anything but delighted to hear Shelagh Delaney invoked. The number, relative diversity and length of these comments might, with any luck, persuade Joshi Herrmann (for it is he who needs persuading) that a great deal more coverage of arts & culture, will likely bring complementary numbers of subscribers to his Mill.
Dave Moutrey is an honourable man who speaks his mind in a soft North East accent. He’s an asset to Manchester, and one that doesn’t wrap itself in layers of self-promotion masquerading as the general good. He is not smug. He’s not constantly waving semaphoric value-signals.
Dave Moutrey is more Abraham Moss than Soho House, more Zion Arts than Serpentine pavilion. He has not skipped from board to trustee board, to posh dinner to White Cube opening, on his way to his OBE. He’s always been more HOME than Royal Academy. I heartily disagreed with him about the Cornerhouse move from Oxford Road to Tony Wilson place. I was entirely wrong, he was completely right. I admire him and sincerely hope that in his new full time roll as Manchester’s Director of Culture he is able to continue to bridge gaps in arts access, equalise funding, and lower the stuck-up noses of some of the people who have, largely by the efforts of others, cornered media interest.
Great things have happened in this city for decades, centuries even. Our cultural life did not begin with a festival in 2007. Nor with a night club in 1982. Nor did it all kick off in the Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976. Account must be made of (amongst others) the Bernstein’s choice of Manchester for Granada in 1956, of John Barbirolli’s rebuilding of the Hallé after the war, and of the Library Theatre itself. Dave Moutrey knows these things, and Dave Moutrey has talents and virtues lacking in many of his arts peers. He is an honourable man.
Opera was performed in Hulme in the early 1900s at the Playhouse theatre (currently tenanted by Niamos). There were plays in French in Hulme Hippodrome next door.
Despite cutbacks and general underfunding in the arts nationally I think this is great that Manchester is going to have a full time Director of Culture - and personally I believe the ENO move to Manchester has such a lot of possibilities - particularly developing collaborative projects with Manchester schools. As a head of music in the mid 80s in Manchester we had an amazing project with Glyndbourne with singers and a young director Stephen Medcalfe undertaking a summer term residency at the school working with year 9 students on 'Katya Kabanova'. We also worked on projects with Granada TV and the Manchester Music Service. I'm now back in Manchester teaching music and drama at a girls school and absolutely believe passionately that if we want to develop future audiences schools, Manchester arts organisations and the tertiary sector such as RNCM and Salford and Manchester Universities need to work collaboratively on different scales of projects.
This is interesting. I do think money has a lot to do with the arts being colonised by the middle class.
I grew up in The Bronx to a lower middle class immigrant family in the 60s, when a 15 cent subway token could take you to all sorts of theatre at less than the cost of a pint. The NY Shakespeare Festival had free outdoor shows in Central Park all summer, where as a teenager I saw James Earl Jones playing Macbeth, in what must have been one of the first examples of colour blind casting. They also toured the boroughs, setting up Shakespeare plays in parks in working class neighbourhoods. If you wanted to see any kind of show on Broadway, you could get a ticket in the upper circle for $5, so a wider range of people had access to theatre . It would be fantastic to have something like that here in Greater Manchester, although who would fund it?
My feeling is that since the Library Theatre closed, and now with the loss of Oldham Coliseum, there is a lack of a certain kind of naturalistic play that isn't dumbed down but that is accessible. Those were the staples of the Library Theatre, which was an intimate venue that did a brilliant job on a shoestring. I have seen some excellent theatre at HOME and at the Royal Exchange but particularly at Manchester International Festival I feel that it's too avant-garde for the likes of me. Maybe it's my age, but some years I can't find anything that appeals to me in its programme.
I saw Hamilton last week, where there was an incredibly enthusiastic full house of a wide range of people of all ages. Hamilton is challenging in that it's about figures in American history that few British people know anything about, and it's essentially an opera, albeit in hip hop. But if it's entertaining...and Hamilton is a phenomenon that has had huge buzz so there aren't many other productions like that...people will spend the money and come.
My children, now adults, were lucky when they attended state schools in Stockport and had free music tuition and loan of instruments as well as opportunities to act in plays (usually musicals and one Gilbert and Sullivan operetta) when they were at the local comprehensive. I don't think this is available to state school pupils now.
If the middle classes have 'colonised' the arts, it must be due to them having the time, energy and money to devote to them. Education is also a factor. I was introduced to classical music at primary school when a recording of Chopin's Military Polonaise was played as we all marched into morning assembly. Later on I attended grammar school where my musical education was extended via 2 music teachers for a school of around 800 pupils. You wouldn't get that ratio today in a state school as 13 years of austerity have resulted in drastic cutbacks to musical education.
Just before Christmas I attended a concert at the Bridgewater Hall where the Halle Orchestra performed music composed by the techno DJ and producer, Jeff Mills - with Jeff Mills present in person and playing the drum machine alongside the orchestra. It attracted an audience of all ages ranging from me aged 70 to young people. It was a fab performance with a great atmosphere. I hope that the arrival of ENO will see similar creative ways of raising the profile of opera.
Mention is made in one of the comments about Hamilton. Is Hamilton part of the Arts?
The performances, as many at the Palace and Opera House, are full every night, at seat prices much higher than many arts venues, with many people who, I'm guessing, wouldn't call themselves middle class.
'Our cultural life (in Manchester) did not begin with a festival in 2007, nor with a nightclub in 1982' ...how right you are Phil.
I loved the Library Theatre and The Free Trade Hall in the 60s and early 70s. We didn't have huge venues to hear and experience contemporary music then though, we had to make do with cinemas putting on pop acts or 'gigs' as they're referred to now if they weren't playing the FTH. A more intimate affair and definitely a deeper connection was forged with the artist, I feel.
Excellent piece, thank you. Informative & concise & great to know the arts in Manchester are in good hands.
! manchesters parochial audience? i dont think so. if all else fails blame the people
2 the transition from the library theater to home has been a real tragedy for theater ; they did plays which had resonance with a wide audience .
3 if you take 50% of the young people out of their home environment to go to university elsewhere its unsurprising that the remainder have a limited appreciation of a culture which is not part of their everyday experience. The experience of the grandfather is totally irrelevant( i write as someone who can also quote in aid working class grand and parents but choose not to).
4 on a financial note why should an art form which is enjoyed by a very small group of people ( opera) receive public subsidy at the level it does when other forms of cultural experience( football) get nothing?
A question for David Moutrey he might be able to answer in these comments: does his newly expanded roll as MCC’s full time Director of Culture include in his remit Factory International and MIF?