BBC launches £4m Culture UK creative partnership to hail new era of arts and culture
The BBC has launched a major creative partnership with the UK's four arts councils as part of its drive to attract new audiences to the arts and encourage the public to engage in culture at a time when “working together is more necessary and more urgent than ever”, director-general Tony Hall has said.
BBC joins forces with arts councils to launch Culture UK
The five-year project, Culture UK, is formed of the BBC, Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Wales and Creative Scotland.
The BBC today (4 April) announced a slate of schemes as part of the project aimed at getting the public involved in the arts. These include the Artists First $4m commissioning fund that will give artists and art organisations the opportunity to create broadcast TV and online content which can be shown across the BBC.
The partnership will also develop UK-wide cultural festivals that will act as a platform to showcase emerging and diverse talent. Culture UK has committed to three festivals each year.
To support the project, the BBC is set to appoint cultural heads in each of the BBC's major national and regional offices.
Technology will play a key part in attracting new audiences to the arts, and will be utilised in performance, live events and museum collections in partnership with the BBC’s Research and Development department as well as some “major” technology partners.
The BBC will also open up its online platform to the project to give coverage to live events with Manchester International Festival, the Edinburgh Festivals and the Hay Festival for the first time.
Organisations taking part include Boy Blue Entertainment, Leeds’ Slung Low, the Young Vic, Manchester’s Eggs Collective, Tamasha, Derry Playhouse, Scottish Ballet, Birmingham Rep, Galloway Forest Sanctuary Lab, Bristol Old Vic and balletLORENT in Newcastle.
Projects that have already been confirmed include a TV adaptation of the National Theatre's Brexit play, My Country: A Work in Progress – for BBC2 – and a dance film from Boy Blue Entertainment, directed by Danny Boyle.
Culture UK forms part of Hall’s ambitions to make the UK “the most culturally engaged and creative country in the world”.
He said: “There are real challenges that make working together more necessary and more urgent than ever. Culture is one of the things that unites us all and expresses our identity. We ignore that at our peril.”