The Arts Are Not A Luxury

I grew up in a small working- class rural town in Perthshire, Scotland. Nothing much happened there; we didn’t have much money and TV was our only dose of culture. In my house, books were shoved into cupboards, hidden away like skeletons, and theatre, with the exception of am- dram panto, wasn’t “for the likes of us”.

But I never really believed that. Discovering the words of John Cooper Clarke, Lemn Sissay, Benjamin Zephaniah, Angela Carter, Ivor Cutler, Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka, I wanted in. This was reinforced by the lyrics of The Specials, The Fall, Public Enemy, The Smiths, The The, Depeche Mode and Grace Jones. All were politically- charged, railing against mainstream narratives. Dance also had a major part to play on our TV screens, with the likes of DV8 and Michael Clark leading the charge in new, transgressive choreography.

Even television itself had subersive corners- Channel 4 in its original form championed independent auteurs like Derek Jarman and Stephen Frears. Then ‘The Tube,’ its flagship music show, was chaotically brilliant, with an eclectic line-up and Paula Yares and Jools Holland, presenters who openly flirted and fought with guests, long before that was the norm.

This was all so inspiring to me. I wanted to write, to lasso my thoughts on paper before they escaped my grasp. I wanted something that seemed so elusive. After a long struggle in getting my work out, my writing was eventually picked up by Gareth K Vile, who’s now a good friend, and who was then the theatre editor of Scottish cultural magazine The Skinny.

Inverted snobbery is every bit as toxic as snobbery. It hurts bright people with few resources, dims their lights. It helps to perpetuate the myth that we are less than, that our voices don’t matter. But it’s not true. Culture can be found in community centres, independently run galleries and on the streets. It’s found wherever there are people.

The arts save lives. They’re not a luxury, they are a necessity. They free us from the quotidian, make the world explode into life, in glorious 3D Technicolour.

For anyone reading this who has ever been told that “you can’t” , “you won’t”, or “don’t try, because you will fail”, do it. Keep going. Silence the dectractors. Culture enriches everything.

The arts sector in the UK is currently a battleground. Time and time again, we are told “the arts are a luxury” . I’m calling bullshit. Just to reiterate: The arts are a necessity. They save lives. They saved mine.