Written and presented by Ben, with producer and co-writer Rose Baker, An Archive on Four which explores 60 years of colourful, complex, cringeworthy encounters between artists and politicians
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00161mf
The ****ing ballerinas can get to the back of the queue!”
These are the rumoured words of a government advisor, as politicians gathered in 2020 to discuss which industries should be supported through Covid.
Sitting in his home in Manchester, conductor Ben Gernon found these words ringing in his ears. He’d spent most of 2020 banned from going to work, and – like many freelancers in the arts – ineligible for government support. It made him begin to wonder: have things always been like this? Has there been a time in British history when the arts felt truly valued by those in power? Has it ever felt like artists and politicians were on the same team?
Diving into 60 years of colourful relationships between the arts and government, Ben unpacks the stories behind some of the most iconic – and often cringeworthy – encounters between artists and politicians: from Tony Blair’s famous handshake with Noel Gallagher at 10 Downing Street in 1997, to the advent of the National Lottery, the Millennium Dome, the 2012 Olympics and beyond. Along the way, he finds out how we originally came to have a government position called Arts Minister – a role invented in 1964 – and hears from those who’ve done the job whether this department really is a “Ministry of Fun”.
At the heart of Ben’s journey lie a handful of core questions: why do the arts and politics make for such uneasy bedfellows? How do politicians quantify the value of culture? And is it possible for there to be a cohesive relationship between the State and the Arts?
Featuring Virginia Bottomley (former Secretary of State for National Heritage), Chris Smith (former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport), arts supremo and theatre director Kully Thiarai, arts leader and former Kenickie bassist Marie Nixon, and expert cultural historian Professor Robert Hewison.