December 17 2025

‘Art Is All the Things You Don’t Have to Do’ — So Why Do We?

By Bill Scott

First published in Business Cornwall

After the Second World War, although Britain was broke, we chose to create a National Health Service and set up an Arts Council. In other words, to take care of the body and soul of the nation. The Arts Council was established partly out of a need to preserve our culture but also from the awareness that the arts have enormous social value, promoting mental and physical health, bringing joy, reducing loneliness and alienation, encouraging empathy and battling extremism. Theatre plays its part in delivering this aspiration. It brings people together. It arose, thousands of years ago, from a human desire to gather and listen to stories, to be entertained and pass the time but it also allows us to experience other lives and worlds, to gain understanding and different perspectives on life.

In 15^th century, the monks of Glasney College in Penryn wrote some plays, translating Bible stories from Latin into Cornish, and staging them out of doors in the heart of local communities. People from all walks of life assembled to share the experience of watching familiar stories brought to life, full of drama, spectacle, emotion and comedy.

The Cornish fondness for live entertainment in the open air, regardless of what the sky is planning to throw at them, continues today. Miracle Theatre has recently finished its  40^th tour, drawing over 11,000 people to the gardens, castles and cliff edges of Cornwall. What on earth do they do this? 

Theatre in its purest form requires only a space, a performer and an audience but it can be also a complex business, a collaboration between many disciplines: writers, composers, musicians, dancers, actors, designers, technicians, etc. This can be costly so creative business models are needed to sustain it. The West End offers lavish blockbuster movie-style spectacles, and a seat can cost hundreds of pounds. At the other end of the UK’s wide range of theatre models are the small-scale rural touring companies, like Miracle. How can they be viable?

One of our driving principles is to make theatre accessible to everyone, so expensive ticket prices are not an option. So, we rely, not just on box office income, but a mix of public funding, business and creative partnerships, sponsorship and donations. 

You can measure the value of touring a show to a village hall in a number of ways: hopefully, it’s a good night out. Then there’s income,  shared between the theatre company, (wages, production, marketing  and touring costs) and the venue, (generating funds for upkeep and other overheads and supporting further events); but far greater value – though hard to quantify – exists in benefits such as the strengthening of social bonds:  how the shared experience of a live performance provides an opportunity for neighbours to interact and fosters a sense of belonging and community spirit. For some people visiting show can be a rare opportunity to get out and meet people, to take a joyful break from daily routines, to experience an antidote to loneliness. The right kind of show can appeal to a wide audience range, giving families an outing that all generations can enjoy together. These sorts of events can even play a part in enhancing a community’s identity and pride and, with the right follow-up, be a stimulus for people to participate in their own artistic endeavours. 

Brian Eno once said, “Art is all the things you don’t have to do”. The challenge, in these times of rising costs, when arts provision for young people is shrinking, and as more people turn to their screens for stimulation and entertainment, is to find new business models that allow small companies like Miracle to continue delivering high quality live performances to rural communities, creating shared joyful experiences, while keeping them affordable and accessible.  Suggestions on a postcard, please.