Printed at The Baynard Press, Chryssell Road, London, S .W .9 . Designed by Germano Facetti. Diagrams by W. E . Williams . A-(Cck-t 4 1 r,-- c p -~ The Arts Council of Great Britain ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN REFERENCE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE LIBRARY 17th ANNUAL REPORT 1961-1962 4 St . James's Square, London, S . T.1 Contents page 3 A Brighter Prospect 21 Appointments, Retirements and Honours 25 The National Theatre and South Bank Development s 28 Dram a 38 Musi c 47 Opera and Ballet 55 Art 60 Poetry 64 Arts Festivals : Arts Associations, Centres and Club s 67 Scotland 81 Wale s 89 Notes on the Account s Appendice s The medallion used on the cover is taken from the Corporate Seal of the Arts Council designed by Reynolds Stone, C.B .E ., R .D .I., and engraved by George Friend. A Brighter Prospect I The title chosen for the Arts Council's seventeenth Annual Repor t is more encouraging than some of those used in recent years, such a s `Art in the Red' and `The Struggle for Survival '. There are several reasons for this expression of qualified optimism . One is that, despite th e wintry economic climate, the Government has increased its subventio n to the Arts Council during the year 1962/3 by £445,000 above that of th e previous year. For this beneficence, and indeed for his attitude to th e arts as a whole, we are much indebted to Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. Of this additional sum more than one-third has been distributed among the hard-pressed repertory theatres, a timely action which has already had the effect of persuading many Local Authorities to follow suit . A further one-third of the extra money is to be applied to the needs of opera and ballet, and the remainder has enabled the Arts Council to give increased support to many other valuable enterprises . There are other encouragin g developments . The Government and the L.C.C. are joining forces to build a National Theatre and a new home for Sadler's Wells on the Sout h Bank; the L .C.C. is completing and improving the Royal Festival Hall , building a smaller concert hall, and also a spacious art gallery to whic h the Arts Council will bring some of its major exhibitions of painting an d sculpture. Although theatres continue to close, others are being built , renovated or bought up by Local Authorities . Torquay and Chicheste r have opened new theatres . Croydon's is due to be finished this autumn , work has begun on Guildford's, and Nottingham's should be ready a yea r from now. The municipalities of Sunderland, Hull and Darlington have each acquired theatres that were up for sale and propose to keep the m running on a civic basis . A protol pe Another welcome action in which Local Authorities are deepl y of Patronage involved is the creation of the North Eastern Association for the Arts , a prototype of patronage which the Arts Council has been recommending for some time . In this federation, now firmly on its feet, there are brought together several municipalities, and such other regional interests as Universities, television, amateur societies, voluntary bodies and adul t education . The functions of the Association include those of acting as a pressure group to secure a fuller and more balanced provision of the art s in North East England, of raising funds to contribute to this expansion , and of sponsoring such major projects as might include a regional tourin g theatre company and a full-scale regional orchestra. The primary responsibility for nourishing the arts should be a local one, and, for th e first time, this responsibility is being expressed and organised on a comprehensive scale. Even though such bodies will prove a rod for th e Arts Council's back we welcome this Association unequivocally and hop e that its example will be followed in many other regions . Signs of a similar endeavour are reported in three other localities . There are at present being planned two major enterprises which ar e likely to have a resounding effect when they materialise . One is the Shakespeare Festival of 1964, designed to commemorate his 400t h birthday on a national and international scale ; the other is the first Commonwealth Festival of the Arts, to be celebrated simultaneously in London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Cardi ffduring several weeks of 1965, and animated by the purpose of displaying the range and quality of artisti c achievement in our Dominions and Colonies. Nothing on the scale of these operations has been attempted since the Festival of Britain, 1951 . Cau .sr ror All these are matters of satisfaction, and they justify the assertion Concerzz that the outlook for the arts is brighter than it has recently been . But `brighter' does not mean `bright', and many anxieties continue . A young body like the enterprising and avant-garde Western Theatre Ballet is i n jeopardy, mainly because the Local Authorities of the western countie s fail to support an artistic ensemble of which they ought to be proud . A similar struggle faces the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra, a small bu t excellent group which aspires to become a full-size orchestra . West o f the Pennines there are two celebrated and successful permanent sym- phony orchestras. East of the Pennines there is none, and the Northern Sinfonia could be the answer to this deficiency . But the build-up will be a long and costly operation and, again, one which merits a greater volume of local subsidy than is yet available . In wider fields there are other causes of disquiet . Musicians in the provinces are poorly paid and the orchestras wish to introduce higher scales. Current budgets of the Arts Council and Local Authorities allo w nothing for such a contingency, and the situation on this particular fron t has now become critical . Although its Exchequer grant has multiplie d fourfold in the last dozen years the Arts Council has no more than nominal reserves to cope with such eventualities, or to give timel y initial aid to new ventures in the arts, so that by the time it can afford to help a new aspirant the unfortunate claimant is liable to be on it s last legs even if it is still on its feet. To this chronic lack of means to underwrite new and desirable ventures there must be added the incessan t cost of inflation to all the bodies already on the Council 's books . The agreeable fact that the Arts Council has four times as much money from the Government as it had in 1951 is offset by the fact that its earl y budgets were too small for the activities it was trying to sustain. A scale of patronage that was wrong from the start is not easily brought to a proper level, and the continuing insecurity of several of the Arts Council's major beneficiaries has been masked for years by their mounting over - drafts. II But, although it is still clouded by problems not yet resolved, the In retrospect prospect for the arts is distinctly better than it has been for many years , and very much better than it was before the Arts Council was con- stituted by Royal Charter in 1946. A retrospective summary of the Arts Council's development is appropriate at this point when, firmly - established and well-experienced, it is facing some new problems o f patronage . In all but name the Arts Council began in 1939, on th e outbreak of war, when the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) was set up . CEMA itself was, in turn, a tributary whic h sprang from a source discovered in 1935 . In that year there began a n experiment somewhat ambitiously, and perhaps portentously, calle d `Art for the People' . It was conceived by the present writer and carrie d out by the British Institute of Adult Education . The notion behind it was that most people seldom see a good picture, for art galleries ar e scarce, and good art galleries very rare indeed . There are, on the other hand, a great number of pictures in private possession which might be coaxed out of the hands of their owners for a few months and circulate d among small towns and rural areas . In 1935 separate exhibitions were assembled and shown at Swindon, Barnsley and Silver End (an Essex village) . The entire operation cost about £300, of which one-third was provided by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and most of the rest b y individual supporters. The pictures, all French and English of the last fifty years, were lent by private owners, or by the Contemporary Ar t Society and the Courtauld Institute . The enterprise thrived; it attracte d very large attendances and provoked wide discussion among them . The project was expanded in successive years, and was fortified b y small funds from some Local Authorities, and particularly by subsidie s secured by Dr. Thomas Jones, C.H., then Secretary of the Pilgrim Trust . He was a resourceful as well as a dedicated man, this Nestor from the Rhymney Valley, and in locating money to endow good works he had the uncanny art of the water-diviner. When war broke out in 1939 he wa s asked by Lord de la Warr, then Minister of Education, to discuss th e possibilities of expanding `Art for the People' as a morale-raiser . At the decisive meeting they were joined by Lord Macmillan, Minister o f Information and Chairman of the Pilgrim Trust, and at noon on Decembe r 14th, 1939, CEMA came to life with a grant of £25,000 from the Pilgri m Trust.