The pandemic has revealed the Johnson government’s attitude to the arts: a mixture of indifference and hostility
Human beings need to regularly gather together. Over the past 15 or so months, the fact that we have largely been deprived of such opportunities has been a key reason why so many people have felt so listless and disoriented – and, for that matter, why some have been driven to break the rules. Obviously, to understand what they have done is not to condone it, but there is something in all those stories of illicit parties and so-called raves that highlights a need for communality and shared pleasure that will always finds cracks to grow in, like weeds on the driest of pavements.
The best example of what we have missed centres on the UK’s outdoor festivals. Amid corporate sponsorship and phone-charging tents, these events may not necessarily look like the modern version of ancient rites involving dancing, singing and feasting (and intoxication), but it is not hard to see them as exactly that. They also highlight what the performing arts bring to the world, and how much people value them. In 2019, 26% of British adults were reckoned to have gone to at least one festival in the past 12 months; before the pandemic struck, the sheer number of British events – from vast mega-festivals to compact local versions – spoke volumes about people’s appetite for them.
