Equity meeting with Arts Council England

An Equity-organised meeting with the Arts Council England (ACE) brought theatre professionals face-to-face with ACE chief executive Peter Hewitt yesterday for some angry exchanges about proposed funding cuts. The Guild was well represented and we'll have a report on our website soon.

In the meantime, here's an account in The Times, and Lyn Gardner's comments.

By the end of the meeting Hewitt did look visibly shaken, and several times struggled to keep his anger under control. If he is a wise man, he will have rushed back to the office and demanded to see every scrap of evidence on which each and every one of these decisions has been made. Hewitt leaves the Arts Council at the end of the month, and the mess he leaves is wretched. He'll be gone - but the arts community will be living with it for years to come.