Culture in Crisis? Amazing year on the cards for 08

Aug 17 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

In the final part of our special report into Liverpool Culture Company, Arts Editor Philip Key finds the city’s leading arts organisations remain ready to deliver

MAKE no mistake, Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008 will not be a dull affair.

There will be events a-plenty and lots that will be new and exciting.

But just who will be behind these events? Certainly some will have been dreamed up by the Liverpool Culture Company, but the vast majority will be created by Liverpool’s own arts organisations.

Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. There are those who thought the appointment of someone like departed artistic director Robyn Archer to head the programme was an enlightened one.

She had world contacts and an ability to find international performances for a year that was meant to have world interest.

Alas, her early choices of obscure New York dance companies on stage at the Royal Court Theatre may have been inspired but lacked the accessible qualities Liverpool audiences have often demanded. They were interesting but never got the audiences. And they cost thousands.

Ms Archer was soon on her way, along with other personnel from the Liverpool Culture Company, and the tarnished reputation began. It was a reputation that was due to stick.

That has been rather unfair. Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture has never been dependent on what the Culture Company, huge budget and all, could produce. Instead, it has been up to the arts organisations already in the city.

They set out to create their own programmes – often in consultation with the company – and, with the culture title as a backing, have been able to create some excellent events for 2008.

The Liverpool Empire this year, for example, has three world premieres with support from the Culture Company.

King Cotton, the new musical by Liverpool writer Jimmy McGovern, is a co-production between The Lowry at Salford and the Liverpool Culture Company and will be staged at the theatre in late September after a Lowry premiere.

A show based around the lives of 19th-century Lancashire cotton workers and cotton picking slaves in the Southern States of the USA, it will be directed by Liverpool-born director Jude Kelly, now running events to great success on London’s South Bank.

The Culture Company has also been working with Welsh National Opera in the creation of a new opera, The Sacrifice, by composer James MacMillan. That will be premiered in Cardiff, although the first date on the tour will be in Liverpool.

And English National Ballet – which long promised a new piece for Liverpool – will premiere a new ballet The Snow Queen (and this time a real Liverpool premiere) in October.

Hannah Collins, general manager at the theatre, said they had a good working relationship with the Culture Company for their own events, although she did admit that the problems with the Mathew Street Festival – nothing, of course, to do with the Empire – were “disappointing”.

The theatre nevertheless has two shows connected with Beatles Week over the Bank Holiday weekend, the American tribute band Rain playing on August 25 and Gerry and the Pacemakers heading a Merseybeat tribute on August 27.

Many of Liverpool’s biggest arts venues and organisations – once known as the Big Eight – now regularly meet every fortnight under the title Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium (LARC) with the Liverpool Culture Company.

Someone from the company reports on what is happening and the consortium then discuss their own affairs.

ONCE it was known that the Liverpool Daily Post was contacting arts organisations for their views on the Culture Company, there was apparently some concern. A press officer for one of the Big Eight told me: “There was a consensus of opinion to say ‘no comment’.”

It was a natural reaction from organisations which not only have to work with the company but which need to boost some optimism for Liverpool’s European Culture Year.

It is an optimism sorely needed.

June Lornie, who runs the Liverpool Academy of Arts, is one of the pessimists.

She has regularly had funding from Liverpool City Council for her annual exhibition of art inspired by The Beatles. This year, when she got her forms to request financial help, she was told to send them to the Culture Company. She needed £2,000 and got nothing.

“They used the word ‘diversity’ to explain why I could not have anything this year,” she said. “You tell me what that means.”

In the event, she got money from the Community Foundation for Merseyside and a little more besides so the exhibition has gone ahead. But she remains bitter.

‘I HAVE always loved Liverpool but now I worry about my city. As for the Capital of Culture, the excitement seems to have gone.”

Rather more positive is Alistair Upton, executive director of the Bluecoat, due to reopen in the New Year after a £12.5m refurbishment.

“Our major redevelopment would not have happened without the European Capital of Culture year,” he says. “It has created at least two positive results, our new building and the Arena.”

The Bluecoat (as it is now known having dropped the “arts centre” bit) has worked with the Culture Company and the relationship has been fine, says Upton.

He is looking forward to 2008. “It is going to be good and going to be fun and everyone will get stuck in and have a good time.”

Like many of the organisations, the Bluecoat’s full programme will not be released until later this year.

Other arts organisations were not exactly stepping forward to support the Culture Company. A spokeswoman for FACT said it was not thought appropriate to make a comment at this time, while the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse would only release a past statement by artistic director Gemma Bodinetz in which she said she would “move forward positively with many of the exciting theatrical offerings we have in development.” The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic also contented itself with a bland statement: “We are committed to playing our part in a successful 2008, working in collaboration with our funding partners, of which Liverpool Culture Company is one, as well as our cultural, economic, social and regeneration partners and communities.”

Despite the caution, Liverpool does seem to be ready for a bumper year of events in 2008, from Viennese balls at St George’s Hall and a new musical based on the Adelphi Hotel to the return of Sir Simon Rattle to Liverpool with his Berlin Philharmonic and the fifth international Biennial of contemporary art.

And that is all before a full programme is due to be announced before the end of the year.

We should still be in for an amazing year.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk