King's Head Fights Funding Withdrawal
Date: 1 March 1999
The fringe King's Head Theatre is fighting back against the London Arts Board's (LAB) decision to withdraw its grant of £34,000, which goes into effect 1 April 1999. The LAB's decision has, reportedly, been made on the grounds of poor artistic quality in addition to lack of faith in the theatre management.
The King's Head has accepted criticisms of management practices and implemented changes. But the theatre has strongly refuted the accusation that its productions are substandard. It says that the LAB has been biased by minority personal opinion and that a full 90 percent of the LAB's own appointed assessors were favourable to the theatre's work. It also claims that none of the LAB officers or advisory members who made the final funding decision had been to a single King's Head production in the past three years.
Even the independent report commissioned by the LAB and carried out by a team of external experts concluded that the King's Head, based above a pub in Islington, north London, 'provides a unique environment for theatregoers and those new to the theatre; a fringe theatre with a difference; an off-off West End house that artists of significance are happy to play in...'
The board of the King's Head met earlier this month to vote for a campaign to combat the LAB's decision. Efforts will include extensive lobbying and letter-writing efforts to raise awareness of the venue's plight. A spokeswoman for the King's Headtold What's On Stage that they will also be undertaking a complex procedure to complain, via their local MP, to the local ombudsman - a procedure, she said, that will prove more difficult given that the theatre's local MP is culture secretary Chris Smith, ultimately responsible for Arts Council funding.
Eve Ensler is currently performing her New York hit The Vagina Monologues at the King's Head, and the spokeswoman confirmed that the next two productions will go ahead as planned. What happens after that, if the lobbying efforts fail, is uncertain. The theatre will continue to receive £15,000 worth of funding from the London Borough Grants Committee, but will need to rely on project funding beyond that - something that is not viable for the long term. 'You can't run a theatre on a project to project basis,' the spokeswoman told What's On Stage. 'You can't do any long-term planning that way.'
The last time the King's Head faced a funding crisis, the Cameron Mackintosh Foundation stepped in with a gift of £25,000. If talks with the LAB fall through, the spokeswoman hopes 'maybe other organisations will step in and come to the rescue', but she remains sceptical.
For further information, contact the King's Head Theatre on +44-171-226-8561.
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