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588 cultural organisations across England are to benefit from a share of more than £76 million, building on the funding awarded from the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund on Monday. This takes the total to £333 million awarded to support arts and culture this week. 

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “This is more vital funding to protect cultural gems across the country, save jobs and prepare the arts to bounce back. Through Arts Council England we are delivering the biggest ever investment in the arts in record time. Hundreds of millions of pounds are already making their way to thousands of organisations. These awards build on our commitment to be here for culture in every part of the country.”

Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England, said: “Culture is an essential part of life across the country, helping to support people’s wellbeing through creativity and self-expression, bringing communities together, and fuelling our world class creative industries.  This latest set of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund builds on those announced recently and will help hundreds of organisations to survive the next few months, ensuring that the cultural sector can bounce back after the crisis.  We will continue doing everything we can to support artists and cultural and creative organisations, with further funding to be announced in the coming weeks.”

This funding will provide a lifeline for organisations and venues who help communities engage with art and culture across England. It will protect nationally and internationally renowned organisations like the Military Wives Choirs, the Kneehigh Theatre in Cornwall, the Comedy Store venues in Manchester and London and the Hepworth Wakefield’s collection of modern British art. The West End’s longest running play, The Mousetrap, will also receive a grant of £228,973 to help restart performances to socially distanced audiences. 

A wide range of art forms will benefit from these awards including operating circuses and training for future performers. Zippos Circus, one of the oldest circuses still running in the UK, will receive £628,986 to continue with covid-secure performances across the country and the National Centre for Circus Arts will be able to safely provide workshops and classes for artists and young people thanks to a grant of £466,000.

Funding is also going to festivals across the country from grassroots arts festival BlackFest based in Liverpool, which is receiving £50,000 to trial socially distanced events, to Shangri-La Glastonbury, the contemporary art producers behind one of the iconic festival’s most legendary stages where some of the world’s biggest artists including Lady Gaga and Madonna have performed, which is being awarded £61,059 to develop a new digital art and music event platform and continue work with emerging artists.There are also grants for grassroot music venues like Night and Day in Manchester whose support for local unsigned artists has launched major careers for well-known acts like Elbow.

Comedy venues and festivals from Liverpool to London are also benefiting from this tranche of grants. The internationally renowned Leicester Comedy Festival is the longest running and largest comedy festival of its kind in Europe and a grant of £105,000 will allow planning to continue for next year’s festival. Liverpool’s only purpose built comedy club, The Hot Water Comedy Club, is receiving a £450,000 grant from the Culture Recovery Fund to cover fixed costs for the comedy club and the additional measures needed to make the venue Covid-safe for performances. The Comedy Store, the largest employer of professional comedy performers in the UK and one of Europe’s most significant comedy institutions, will receive £964,252 to retain staff in both city locations and deliver an exciting programme that will provide fees for more than 250 freelancers. 

Further details of grant awards of up to £3 million and £270 million in repayable cultural finance will follow in the coming days and weeks. 

Funding for organisations that were financially stable before Covid-19, but were at imminent risk of failure and have exhausted all other options for increasing their resilience.

Arts Award projects 02. (c) Thom Hobbs. Image courtesy of Prime Theatre Arts Award, Youth Theatre
Photo by Arts Award projects 02. (c) Thom Hobbs. Image courtesy of Prime Theatre Arts Award, Youth Theatre
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