Creativity crushed by those meant to nurture it

PHRASES you don’t want to hear: ‘I’ll be taking questions after the first hour’, ‘Here’s writer AL Kennedy with more of her stand-up comedy, and we’ve jammed the off button’, or ‘Now it’s time for some government-funded rapping.’

For some, the prospect of hip hop may prompt you to flee like a pit pony released from a mine. At the very least, it’s safe to say the hip hop scene in Scotland is a bit niche; like sunbathing in Wick, or pineapple picking in Ardrossan.

On the other hand all artists are entitled to apply for funding from Creative Scotland, the government quango that distributes arts and culture subsidies.

So when Darren McGarvey, a Scottish rapper, complained at the weekend that Creative Scotland had a problem with the working class, the principled response was to pay attention.

However, it turned out Darren hadn’t even applied to Creative Scotland. Neither had his hip hop friends because they had already decided it was ‘a waste of time’.

I’m no fan of the bureaucracy and box-ticking of Creative Scotland but, to be fair to the quango, you can hardly gripe about being denied access to funding if you don’t bother to apply. In that narrow sense, Darren failed to prove that Creative Scotland has a problem addressing the working class.

But Creative Scotland does have a problem addressing Scotland, sometimes quite literally so.

At arts events, when it’s time for the person from Creative Scotland to take to the stage, clutching a sheaf of notes from the dullest civil servant that ever bit a biscuit, you can see the audience’s shoulders collectively sag.

At an opening night of the Silent Film Festival in Bo’ness, for instance, the audience had got into the mood by dressing up in costumes appropriate to the silent film era and the cinema bubbled with excitement.

Then the Creative Scotland bod mounted the stage and delivered a lengthy speech about libraries with all the enthusiasm of a tenyear-old and a last-minute essay about the industrial revolution. The atmosphere deflated like a blood pressure cuff.

If arts are about communicating enthusiasm and new ideas, Creative Scotland seems to view itself as the devil’s advocate; a damper to any artistic spark. When it was set up to replace the old Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, the birth took more than four years, £7million and endless consultations and commissions. Seven years on, it still struggles to win the confidence of the people it is supposed to represent.

The byzantine demands of its grant forms are one complaint from scunnered artists. Timeconsuming, fund-devouring consultations are another. The greyness of Creative Scotland’s board members is another weakness – the public would surely struggle to find a recognisable inspirational artist among their number.

Now Creative Scotland warns that a fall in lottery funding means budget cuts for Scottish culture. Now more than ever, we need a body that can get creative when making the case for theatre, music, writers and performers.

But can a government quango be expected to deliver that rap?