Amongst the good places to be in Britain, the National Theatre and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon are up there. What I see or do when in these places is almost secondary to being there. Soaking it up in the National Gallery is a close second. Knowing that this country once had the courage to provide the necessary subsidy to create a national theatre; it is daily fillip to see what a beacon our two great theatres are for work that makes us think about how we live.
This feeling is compromised by knowing what is going on in maintained schools at the moment. Writing in The Guardian, the Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, asked why we are squeezing the creativity from our schools. Norris offered as evidence statistics on the benefit to the UK economy of the creative industries (which are of greater value to the UK economy each year than the automotive, oil, gas, aerospace and life sciences combined).
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