My response to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports’ call for evidence

The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports is asking for evidence about the effect of the pandemic on the arts industry.  Here’s what I said:

I am a travelling Show who has worked for over fifty years in the open air events sector. My show is a family Vintage Variety Show involving magic, music, juggling,  unicycling, illusion and high balance.  Last year I was joined by a live keyboard accompanist, a former marine bandsman with forty years live performance experience.  Before the pandemic the show was booked every weekend at galas, festivals and events between the beginning of May and the end of October.  2020 was to have been my busiest year to date, with many new bookings as well as those I visited every year, some for as many as thirty years without a break.

The effect of the pandemic has been disastrous.  Every booking has been cancelled.  I have one or two bookers have said they will book me again in 2021 but this will depend on what restrictions will be in place then. 

I am a member of Equity and the Outdoor Arts UK associations and I have received some emergency funding through these organisations. I also received a grant from the Grand Order of Water Rats. In the short term their grants and generosity have been able to help me financially but the medium and long term is by no means as optimistic. If I am to carry on as a professional (and I am now too old to learn another skill), then the open air event industry must be supported to survive.

Open air events must change to reflect the changes in acceptable and legal social interaction.  Admission must be monitored. Audiences must be separated into distanced groups.  Toilet facilities must provide safe use. There must be stations to allow for hand washing and sanitisation.  Graphic reminders of social distancing rules must be obvious and security must be in place to support this.  Queuing must be monitored.  The use of technology must be accelerated to aid all these measures.

But open air events must continue and can only do so if they are supported by government.  They represent a cultural dimension of human activity which dates back millennia through fetes and galas to parades and touring troubadours, mystery plays and way beyond back to the lone travelling storyteller and shaman.  We open air performers carry this tradition forward today in everything we do, everything we work for.  The cohesion of community and social life is furthered through our work.  It is not just entertainment.   It is a vital celebration of community and social life, traditional and essential.  It must change and adapt certainly, as it always has to war, disaster and the like, but it must be supported by central and local government intervention to allow it to continue.  Without that financial and fiscal support, this rich. life-affirming, colourful tradition cannot survive.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

The trail of breadcrumbs

I’ll start where I left off last week, and with the possibility of a new start. 

It’s been a rollercoaster week of learning and creating and I have to say I am back on form after my dalliance and dance with the black dog.  Several things brought me out and I want to tell you about them.  I had some uplifting emails and I am so grateful for those who sent messages of hope and encouragement.  People who had really thought about what I’ve been saying and knew where I’ve been.  One of the best things about us humans is our capacity to be there.  I’m not sure about empathy.  I have a friend who says ‘a problem shared is a problem doubled’, which is funny and true because it is funny or maybe funny because it is true.  But being there and showing up for someone going through mental health challenges is a lot more helpful honestly, so thank you.

It all launched me on a search for what it means to be creative and my guru in the search became Elisabeth Gilbert, by way of her TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius ).  I downloaded her book ‘Big Magic’ after listening to her talking recently with head of TED, Chris Anderson, about being overwhelmed by the coronavirus.  That journey took me also to the thoughts about what I have been good at in my life and what I could explore in the way of following Ms Gilbert’s ‘trail of breadcrumbs’.

I responded to an email from someone I knew years ago when I ran The Clocktower, the training and education centre I founded in the heady days of the early lottery.  She founded and now runs an arts charity in North Wales and was looking for a project to launch and rebrand the Charity’s work.  The long and the short is that I’ve been helping with that as a volunteer and have been creatively involved with developing a project for 18-24 year olds who have been effected by the constraints of lockdown and feel isolated and a bit lost.  Like us all really but we oldies have at least had the huge advantage of a pandemic-free career to look back on, reflect on, remember and feel good about.  And unlike half the world who, as well as all those feelings, are also suffering, starving, homeless, disenfranchised and desperate.

So I am following the trail and I must say it IS fascinating.  It’s not about a new career, though the thought of earning a penny or two from it at some point is a vague possibility.  It is about doing something for the others again.  'Storing my grain in the belly of my neighbour' as Ms Gilbert quotes. And I must say that thought is uplifting and energising. I am finding a new energy and enjoying all the new ways of co-working now far more technologically than they ever were in my day, but clever and useful and matching in some ways the workings of the human brain.

The project would be a four week online (how could it be anything else) project for young people interested in discovering their creativity and working towards a career.  There’s a psychologist also in the brainstorm (sorry – blue sky thinking) team and I am finding the process hugely rewarding.  Wherever it leads.  There is the possibility of a live event (or whatever might be possible under the emerging guidelines for human:human contact) or a video showcase at the end and mentoring young individuals in their personal career journeys.

In many ways it is a reflection and realisation of some of what I have tried to do whilst on tour.  I’m thinking of the many, many young people who always seem to be ‘hangers-on’ (wrong phrase, I know) to the show in almost every place I visited.  How easily that has stepped into the past tense! They were mostly open-minded thinking people who become fascinated by what I do and end up being drawn into the ‘big magic’ of it all.  I could list them now as I have learned their names over the years and it has always fascinating to catch up with their journeys annually as we met and met again.  I have watched many grow up and have children of their own. The project is a way I can stay involved with learning (another life-long study and fascination), community development and, hey, let’s not be humble here, the future of the human race, the planet and existence itself.

Because in all this I can only do what I can do from the perspective of lockdown, shielding, video conferencing and old people’s shopping hour.  And a bit of practice of close-up magic for fun and brain exercise.  But these local and neighbourhood processes and actions are virtually all we have.  Funny how the word ‘virtual’ has come to mean something very different now.  But the virtual is at least far better than nothing.

All the best from a road, on the other side of the screen, near you,

Mr Alexander