When rants collide

[shewhomust]

The government has launched a competition to find the UK's first 'City of Culture'. If you thought the UK had had Cities of Culture in the past, you are probably thinking of UK cities, most recently Liverpool, which have been chosen as 'European City of Culture'. That (and the economic regeneration it has, we hope, achieved) is the inspiration behind the new proposal, which is slightly different - domestic, and open to smaller cities, who are invited to involve their hinterlands. On this basis, Durham is bidding for the title.

Here's an early report, from the Durham Times: the initiative came from the County Council (as it was at the time, before the City Council was subsumed into one unitary authority), and envisages the 'City' taking in not just the whole of County Durham, but the whole region. The initial supporters are the MP and the tourism partnership, rather than people working in the cultural sector. Here's a more recent story, in which "officials", "bosses at Durham County Council" call on the public to get involved by writing messages of support on the wall of the Empty Shop art gallery.

Trouble is, I don't want to write a message of support. I feel I've been presented with a fait accompli, and now it's somehow unpatriotic not to support it, or even to ask, well, what are we supporting? Durham can seem sleepy, but there is a strong cultural life going on, though it isn't always easy to find it: many good writers live and work here, there are visual artists (and brilliant locations to inspire and display their art), the Gala Theatre is developing into an atmospheric music venue, and our proximity to the Sage and Folkworks ensures a better than average crowd of buskers. But these aren't the foundations on which the bid is built.

durham_rambler and I were at a meeting of the local Area Action Partnership (don't ask) which heard a presentation about the competition, and maybe we were just unlucky in the speaker, but the gist of the talk was 'Durham has some wonderful buildings, we deserve to win this and it will bring jobs and money to Durham.' We were given a print out of his PowerPoint presentation, so I can list what it saw as the Cultural Assets of County Durham: the Riverside Cricket Ground, Cathedral, Killhope lead mining museum, the Bowes Museum, Durham Castle, Raby Castle, Seaham regeneration, Beamish Open Air Museum and the Dales - in that order. When durham_rambler suggested that to see our cultural assets as limited to bricks and mortar, and that, for example, the Gala Theatre was having some success in putting on its own productions, the speaker reacted not to the idea that culture might also be about people and what they do, but "Oh, yes, I shouldn't have failed to mention the Gala Theatre..." If I had to name one of Durham's cultural assets, I'd probably name the Gala - not the theatre, but the Big Meeting itself, rooted in the City's history, loud with brass bands and gaudy with banners...

But I digress. A more hostile questioner asked what was in it for the people of Durham, and our speaker (who appears on the Agenda as 'tbc', so I can't name names) answered like a shot: revenue. Now, clearly this is the bottom line (art for art's sake, but money for God's sake) but do we have to be quite so blatant about it? Couldn't we at least pay lip service to the idea that art (and sport, too, because sport is also culture, and if I have time I'll come to that later) is a good thing because it makes your life better? That - to misquote Gilbert Shelton - culture will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no culture? Apparently not.

Does it matter? If they don't improve their act beyond what I saw, not really; time will be wasted and it will all be rather embarrassing, but at the end of the day no harm done. But if they do sharpen up - and it seems that the face of the bid is now someone with some track record (Paul Gudgin, a former director of the Edinburgh Fringe, to save you clicking through to the full story), then this is going to shape where the cultural budget goes for the foreseeable future. "Asked how Durham could cope, Mr Gudgin suggested existing buildings could be adapted and new venues built." Let's hope that means grabbing the old Miners' Hall (now that its incarnation as the Walkabout pub is at an end), rather than more developments like Walkergate (which was originally intended to host a cinema as well as restaurants and bars; we built it, but they never came).

Time is running out; the rant about how culture isn't just Art, oh no indeed, will have to wait for another time - I have a date with some Desperate Romantics (which I am enjoying very much; I have noticed that it's funny, which helps. And, tonight, William Morris!). But one last proposal before I go:

If Chester-le-Street (otherwise known as Durham Riverside Cricket Ground) is an integral part of Durham, from a cultural point of view, then I think we should launch the bid with a (good grief!) fiftieth anniversary revival of N.F. Simpson's One Way Pendulum.

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

I read the information on the Council web site, and the PDF linked from that page, looking for signs that they were going to engage with Durham's existing creative people, but without any real evidence that they are going to do so. When NewcastleGateshead was going for City of Culture there was a real buzz among the writers there because they could feel it would mean something for them. I don't get that feel from this bid, but maybe it's early days yet.