| A Look-back and Guide |
Public Culture: Public Communication |
| Makers, Media, Ministers , Public Culture of Wales , March 7, 2026 |
The articles in this sequence are as below:9th March 2026: Indhu Rubasingham delivers the Jennie Lee Lecture * * * * 24 July 2025: The many nations and regions show-casing at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025. Wales not included. * * * * 20 March 2025: “It's a Perfect Storm”: TV Coverage of Arts Cuts “Politics Wales” turned to the decision-makers. Rhodri Glyn Thomas first appeared: “The Welsh Labour government obviously doesn't believe the arts are important in Wales. But the arts create a Welsh identity. The national institutions of Wales are the cornerstone of our nation. It's a crisis. It's been a crisis for the last decade and it's got worse every year. * * * * 26 February 2025: “Culture is supposed to be in our DNA” “On 23rd February another march went from Museum Avenue to Gorsedd Gardens. The newly formed Cardiff University Salvation Symphony Orchestra played the national anthem, the Hallelujah chorus, Beethoven's fifth symphony and Sir Karl Jenkins “Adiemus and Palladio”. “Wales is the land of song. Now it’s being silenced by cuts that threaten our culture. Successive Welsh governments have seemingly lacked the talent, drive or fiscal levers to make Wales better. If you want an example of this, look no further than the truly awful position of culture within Wales.” * * * * 09 March 2023: Wales Millennium Centre: Character, Clarity, Candour “As for clarity the phrase “2022 had us stepping into our role as change-makers” is obscure and of no meaning to a public readership. As it does not feature in the Articles of Incorporation the Board should instruct the management that the phrase be deleted.” * * * * 02 March 2023: The Torch Does It Right “Written in the purplest of prose”, he wrote, “which seems designed to turn people off to the arts. Using such florid, ostentatious language to communicate with audiences is an all too common mistake in the arts. “How can you hope to attract new people to experiences such as this when you alienate them with talk of “philosophical resonance”, the struggle of “stepping away from documentation” and every day being “illuminated by profound tendernesses”. For heaven’s sake, just say what you mean, please!” * * * * 31st August 2021: Speaking Welsh Is Racist "The London press enjoyed themselves at the expense of Wales over a weekend this month. "Welsh language use "systemically racist, Arts Council warned" was just one headline in emblazoned print. In the way of the media the story ricochetted around. It even got to feature on Russia Today, ever eager to project fissure and distemper. "Arts Council of Wales finds itself racist for… asking employees to speak Welsh. A report commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales has found the organisation’s own Welsh language policies are “systemically racist”, ran its story, "for setting Welsh language requirements." And, the report added with a bit of relish: "Far from pushing back and safeguarding their unique language, the Arts Council of Wales and National Museums Wales both eagerly accepted the report’s findings." * * * * 04 July 2020: Arad Goch, Theatr Clwyd, the Torch, NTW on Theatre & Covid-19 “We kept on a skeleton team but everyone else has been furloughed, including me. In February, we lost part of the metal cladding on our fly tower during Storm Dennis, and as we’re built on the edge of a cliff, the cost of the scaffolding alone is massive…” * * * * 02 July 2020: Gary Owen, Wynne Roberts, Siân Gwenllian, Angharad Lee on Theatre and its Future “In normal times, of course, theatre is a huge net generator of revenue for the treasury. Just the VAT paid by the West End theatres of London is greater than Arts Council England’s subsidy for theatre in the whole of England. And theatre is the foundation on which our TV and film industries are built.” * * * * 9 June 2019: Welsh National Opera Freedom Season “Opera has always been a place where the state is represented on stage. Its subject matter has always had kings and generals and people of that sort and very often based on the tensions between their public and their private concerns.” “Opera is a very political medium. One of the earliest operas concerns a corrupt Roman emperor. It's not at all a strange thing that opera should deliver a political message.” * * * * 17 February 2019: Dissatisfaction with Representations of Wales "Invisibility- it is not just the news media: dramatic portrayals of Welsh life remain largely invisible in film, music and literature - is that it contributes to an extremely weak sense of national identity in Wales.” Daniel Evans: “A final corollary of this invisibility- it is not just the news media: dramatic portrayals of Welsh life remain largely invisible in film, music and literature - is that it contributes to an extremely weak sense of national identity in Wales.” The invisibility of Wales is a long-standing theme of Ed Thomas, declared with gusto at many a public forum. The same word occurs in a Showcasing Report: “When asking about the shortcomings in Wales, the most commonly cited failing was its invisibility in the field.” “Yvonne Murphy “My experience of the support out there for culture and arts organisations is that it does not understand the sector...Business Wales does not fit or meet the needs or requirements of the cultural arts sector... We are being seen as a sector that can sort out poverty, education, health, and, oh, can you make some great art, and take you on an overseas visit as well to promote Wales?” * * * * 11 January 2018: How Abdul Shayek Broke the Mould “There is a bigger sense of real-life empathy that you don’t get in the same way through a screen. Therefore, theatre will not disappear...It’s a shared experience, you’re there as a group and you share the experience together.” * * * * 1 December 2018: Evasion and Uninterest from Media “Thus, from the start the programme premise was wrong, intent on not giving the situation in Wales the attention it warranted.” * * * * 10 January 2018 The Other Room, Theatr Clwyd & National Theatre Wales Different Kinds of Public Communication “It feels akin to having a teenager in the house. It conveys the impression of mainly hanging out with mates. The website is a teenage bedroom that has not seen a tidying hand in a while. The language it uses leans towards jargon that is outside the ken of average theatre-goers.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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