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Since assuming his position in 1975, Sir Roy says he has sought to make the workings of the Council less mysterious to the artists and the public--which, ironically, has opened it up to increased charges of arbitrariness. "The press writes as though I glance at a list of companies and say. 'Oh, they get a grant, let's cut their grant,' and so on. Which is ludicrous...the funding procedure is complicated and laborious as it should be," he says, Each of the arts--theatre, music, dance, painting, photography and literature among them--has its own panel and group...
Artists have many opportunities to air their grievances to the assessors and the council, but Sir Roy maintains that to give them a formal vote in policy-shaping would be impossible: "They are very interested parties, "he says, "and cannot be expected to be objective and detached about their own needs, performance and rights...
...major disadvantage of corporate subsidy, Sir Roy continues, is that companies sponsor artistic activities as a way of conducting advertising and public relations campaigns. "They're not going to take a chance on a left-wing or experimental work. They don't have the same altruistic concern for the arts that public subsidy does. We could subsidize a play which attacks nuclear energy, whereas the British nuclear power companies wouldn't." In the United States, as any public television watcher knows, Mobil and Exxon are "generous" supporters of the arts...
...given and it can be taken away, if, for example, the head of a firm changes and he doesn't like the director. And there would be no one to raise an outcry since it's all done very privately. Whereas if I decided that I didn't like Sir Peter Hall, it would have no effect on the grant of the National Theatre. We don't work that way. Under that system administrators spend far too much time wining and dining businessmen and entertaining them at the theatre...
...have very much money these days, and give only about one pound to the arts for every 20 provided by the government. In America, too, the major source of funding is not big business but wealthy individuals. "In my country we don't have so many rich people." Sir Roy points...