Another one minute manifesto for you. This one from John Frankland, dad of Tom Frankland, who’s manifesto you can find here. Tom and John were down at Forest Fringe this year working on some material for a new show about them, and a third, absent member of the family – Len Frankland, John’s late father and Tom’s grandfather.
Right this is a call to support the need for public funding of the arts and to encourage everyone to join the debate. What I want is to be part of a society led by a government that sees the arts as an essential part of being a person, the means by which we connect to who we are and our role in the world, our link to culture and history. One that needs and should be subsidised by the state so that it can be experimental, dangerous and not forced to be commercial.
Don’t get me wrong I like commercial, I like a burger as much as the next person. But that is not the Renaissance world I want to inhabit and the Renaissance was subsisded by state patronage.
A world that in particular realises the importance of the Arts to young people and that it should be placed at the heart of any educational system. Young people need to be led to believe in the arts, guided to participate in schools which should be natural homes for creative professionals. And the arts should be seen as a worthwhile career not something you could never earn a living at or to be judged by how often you are on the telly.
I don’t want the Big Society which is expecting me to volunteer and run my own schools and hospitals. I don’t want to be operated on by a well meaning volunteer. I don’t want my children’s teacher to be someone with a dogma to promote.
I want a surgeon to be paid, a teacher to be paid and an artist to be paid.
Why because they are all important and should be done professionally.