A show about economics might sound dry – which is why we set out to make it funny, moving, and visually exciting! We’ve done the research, so you can sit back and enjoy a great night out – laugh, cry, and perhaps feel empowered to shape a fairer economy. I’m Joe Sellman-Leava, one of the performers and co-creators of It’s the Economy, Stupid!, and ahead of our run at Camden People’s Theatre, I’m going to share some thoughts on what the theatre and the wider economy have in common.
If you’ve worked on theatre or the arts over the past 14 years, or know anyone who does, you’ll know it’s not been the easiest of times! But that’s not unique to this sector. The parallels between the theatre and the wider economy are manifold, but here I’ve focused on three main areas: training, ownership and investment. So, let’s dive in!
Training, skills and wages.
Our industry saw many skilled people – most notably, technicians – move to other industries, during COVID. The strain of this is still felt by venues and companies, who are trying to stage the same quantity and quality of work, without enough people who have sufficient training and experience. In the short term, shows might be postponed or cancelled, but there’s a longer-term problem: not enough experienced people to train those who are starting out.
What does this have to do with the rest of the economy? Just speak to anyone who has worked in education or healthcare in the last 14 years. Stagnating wages, decreased funding, and unsustainable working conditions have driven doctors, teachers and nurses away in droves. No industry can sustain itself without training and retaining the people who make it happen.
Ownership
Home ownership is increasingly out of reach for many people; most arts organisations don’t own the land or buildings where they operate. Just as tenants are subject to rent hikes or no-fault evictions, if arts organisations must pay higher rents, they must either cut costs (i.e. staff or projects), or raise ticket prices. And if a landlord decides they could make more money from flats or a commercial venture, that arts venue might be lost altogether. London’s VAULT Festival, and Edinburgh’s Summerhall are two recent victims of this, with ripple effects felt by artists, audiences and communities alike.
It’s the Economy, Stupid! tells the personal story at its heart, via a family game of Monopoly. When this game was invented, in the early 1900s, it was called The Landlord’s Game. Its creator, Lizzie Maggie, designed it so players could experience the disastrous effects of giving landlords too much wealth and power, and the benefits of rebalancing this. Rethinking ownership in today’s economy would not only make it fairer, it would free up time and money for more people to do things they love, like making theatre, or going to see it.
Investment
“Culture pays £2.6bn in taxes, £5 for every £1 of public funding.” - Arts Council England
The wider economic benefits from investing in the arts couldn’t be clearer. With a relatively small amount of public funding, arts projects can get off the ground. Some will then raise additional money via philanthropy or sponsorship, and most will raise more through ticket prices. In the process, people are employed – not just artists, but graphic designers, printers and PR companies, to name just a few. Performances and exhibitions also generate wider economic activity by people going to see them. Many who see a show will make a night of it – drinks, dinner…more drinks! They’ll often need to pay for a taxi or babysitter too.
These wider economic benefits are often taken for granted, but aren’t possible if the work can’t happen in the first place. That requires investment, including public funding. In much the same way, the wider economy is in desperate need of investment. For example, the overlapping crises of cost-of-living, housing and climate, all have political and economic causes. These include underinvestment in house building and renewable energy, and loopholes and tax breaks for fossil fuels and landlords.
If we invested more in the arts, it would likely create more jobs, with wider benefits for pubs, cafes, restaurants and high streets. Similarly, greater investment in our grid, energy storage and renewables would more than pay for itself in things by:
- Creating new jobs, and increasing skills and training. A less centralised energy system, with more solar farms and wind farms spread around the country, would give more people the option of training and working locally, instead of having to move to big cities
- Reducing energy bills. This would keep more money in people’s pockets, to spend in their local economies (rather than being funnelled out to energy giants!)
- Reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Crucially, it would mean relying less on imported fuels from volatile and dangerous parts of the world – giving less money to warlords and dictators, with our energy bills less vulnerable to global energy shocks, (like the ones we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022)
- Most urgently of all, solving the existential climate emergency! Protecting our planet is of course essential for life itself. But the economic costs of not acting are astronomical. Investing now would reduce future costs of responding to disasters caused by extreme weather and flooding, exacerbated by global heating
These are, of course, just a few of the parallels. We hope that telling the story at the heart of our show, and by hosting discussions as we tour it, we can help build a greater understanding of how we shape - and are shaped by -the economy, as well as the ways we can change it for the better – our planet and its people!
It’s the Economy, Stupid!
Fri 25 - Sat 26th Oct 2024 at 9pm
Tickets £8 - £12
(Note: on Friday 25th October, we will be running a post-show discussion with special guest Fraser Stewart from Regen)
