I have written to Westminster City Council’s Cabinet Members for culture and business, asking the Council to urgently devise a specific strategy to help our live arts sector during this unprecedented time.

Westminster is the home of West End theatres, historic concert halls, world-class live music venues and more. This live arts sector is now facing an existential crisis due to the pandemic – and we can’t just stand by and watch it collapse.

This is what I wrote:

“Dear Cllrs Green and Swaddle

I’m writing to ask if Westminster City Council could please urgently devise a specific post-COVID-19 strategy to help businesses in Westminster’s live arts sector.

This issue was touched on briefly in Tuesday night’s Policy & Scrutiny Committee meeting (during your part of the meeting, Matthew). Cultural businesses are of course one area where your portfolios intersect, hence me contacting you both with this request.

As you know, the live arts sector in Westminster is both an essential one for the wellbeing of our residents and our communities, and one that’s responsible for generating millions of pounds for the Westminster economy, and bringing millions of visitors to our borough, every year.

It’s a world-class sector, too: Westminster is lucky enough to be the home of iconic West End theatres, historic concert halls, brilliant live music, dance and comedy venues. And these companies provide more than just live entertainment: they drive vital footfall to businesses around them – such as restaurants and bars – and many of them do great work in our communities, providing education and ensuring that their impact is felt way beyond their (often historic) buildings.

Yet, as many industry figures have been pointing out over recent weeks, this sector is facing an existential crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial pressures on these venues and businesses are now crippling, putting them in real jeopardy, and the jobs and livelihoods of those working in this sector are now on the line. Many live music venues are resorting to crowdfunding campaigns to try to ensure their survival. West End producer Sonia Friedman has warned that “British theatre is on the brink of total collapse”; director Sam Mendes has called the pandemic “the biggest challenge to Britain’s cultural life since the outbreak of the second world war”; and John Gilhooly, Director of Wigmore Hall, has said that “Live performance in London is in danger of total wipeout”.

We need to act now to avoid this terrifying prospect. We need to help these businesses to not just survive but be able to thrive in a post-COVID world. Not least because we will need their art, their productions, the communal power of live performance, more than ever as we recover from this crisis.

I hope that Westminster City Council is willing and able to provide the specific help and support that this vitally important sector needs right now and into the future. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Andrea

Cllr Andrea Mann
Councillor – Churchill Ward
Shadow Cabinet Member for Arts, Culture and Leisure”

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to our Dad. Just eight of us, separated into our little family units. I’m so grateful we each have our little family units.

The trees and the cherry blossom in the crematorium grounds were bursting with joy and colour – pink, white, all shades of green. The birdsong from outside could be heard throughout the service, through the open doors. The sky was – as a favourite songwriter of mine (yes, Bruce) says in a song about life continuing after sadness and tragedy – “still the same unbelievable blue”.

I’m not religious, so had to do a bit of research before finding a suitable passage for the vicar to read. When I found Ecclesiastes 3 1:8 – which I’m sure you’ll all know, whether through the Bible or through the Pete Seeger/Byrds song Turn! Turn! Turn! – it seemed completely appropriate. For our dad, for us kids, for all of us seeing the glorious spring and beginings of summer out there through our windows and in our gardens and parks, and being reminded that the earth keeps turning, that our feelings keep changing, that there is a time and a season for everything. And what is a funeral during a pandemic if not ‘a time to refrain from embracing’, eh… ?

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

My heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone during this time, when it’s so hard to gather together to celebrate the lives of those we loved, and to physically be there to comfort each other in our grief.

But we are not alone – in our sadness, or ever. Our friends and family and strangers look out for and care for us. Nature will keep revealing its comforting reminders to us. And the sky will still be the same unbelievable blue.

(Top photo: Bill Wadman)

A piece I wrote for The Huffington Post:

It was the aftermath of a shocking, devastating general election loss. The Labour party leader was standing down. Nobody knew exactly what would happen next.

It was May 2015 – and it hit me that I actually cared very much about what happened next: both in the Labour party and in the country. And it hit me that I couldn’t really complain about what happened next unless I got involved somehow. 

So in June 2015, I joined the Labour party. Without any history of activism, volunteering or politics. Just a history of shouting at my computer screen. 

It was that election result that finally made me take action, of course; but probably also, somewhere in the back of my mind, a favourite scene from one of my favourite films.

It’s in James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News – a moment where super-smart, super-informed TV news producer Jane (Holly Hunter) chastises super-handsome, not-very-informed TV presenter Tom (William Hurt) for complaining about feeling out-of-depth in his new role as a news anchor. “I agree with you – you’re not qualified,” she tells him. “So get qualified… Stop whining and do something about it.”

Lines from films, books or songs stay with you because they resonate somehow. I realised that deep down, I wanted to be a Jane – but had actually been living my life as a Tom. So in June 2015, I decided to stop whining and do something about it. 

And if, as I felt back then, you’re feeling upset at the general election result; if you have an opinion on why Labour lost so terribly, on why the Tories won so convincingly, on what’s happening in our country, on what you think should happen next in the Labour party; if your values align with Labour’s and, most of all, if you’re sick of shouting at your computer screen, then I urge you to join us.

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