Edinburgh 2012 (5)

Two more shows to go...my time here has just got better and better.  The reviews have been positive and, as the Festival progressed, more intelligent, more understanding of the intention of the piece.

I had a thought too, the title and form of my next piece.  I am excited. 

I am also broke.  Being here has cost about £8000 and the revenue from ticket sales has no where near matched this.  I have been aggravated by how so much resource seems to flow to schemes such as HOUSE, receiving £660,000 from Arts Council England to help promote and encourage small to middle scale touring.  There is a website, have a look.  I was particularly aggravated at an open meeting they hosted here that had a panel of six none of whom were artists.  Where are we in all this?  Surely the art is the life blood..from which everything else flows...without people like me making work, spending thousands of pounds to bring the show to Edinburgh, the venues would have nothing to programme and yet we are excluded from representing our views. I will watch with interest what happens with HOUSE.  All the artists who have put there details onto the website...let us see at the end of the first year how many have been successful in having their work placed into venues.  Is it many or just a few?  What type of work is being programmed and why?  All of a sudden it seems the Arts Council are funding a scheme that supports the notion of market-led theatre. I had always thought ACE was there for the very opposite reason.