LIVERPOOL RESPONDS TO DECREASING NUMBERS OF WORKING-CLASS ARTS WORKERS WITH FLAGSHIP PROJECT AND EXHIBITION: LIGHTS UP ON LIVERPOOL
ArtsGroupie CIC have teamed up with Liverpool Libraries and Information Services for a public exhibition of Liverpool’s theatre history from the archives, courtesy of Liverpool Record Office. Long before Liverpool dominated pop music, Liverpool’s theatre scene was once the envy of all the world. Current and former theatres spanning 250-years are to be put under the spotlight together for the first time from 8 November 2024 to March 2025, for the exhibition Lights Up on Liverpool – open now in the Hornby Library at Liverpool Central Library.
Through its theatre history, the city’s social history unfolds in a vibrant tapestry. Liverpool’s groundbreaking, radical, and experimental approaches to theatre is revisited, particularly working-class contributions to UK theatre. This richly unique history makes it a one-of-a-kind journey through time, which has never been displayed so thoroughly.
The exhibition is a response to the decreasing number of working-class professionals in the performing arts. 2022 Office of National Statistics (ONS) analysis revealed that 16.4% of actors, musicians, and writers born between 1953 and 1962 came from working-class backgrounds, whereas that figure dropped to only 7.9% for those born four decades later. 2024 research from charity Arts Emergency found that fewer than 1 in 10 of all arts workers today come from working-class backgrounds.
ArtsGroupie CIC and Liverpool Libraries and Information Services have responded with a flagship project which they say should be a gold standard of the kind of work that is needed to address access to the arts. ArtsGroupie started this summer with a tie-in Arts Council England funded project Emerging Voices, which included drama workshops for children aged 8-13, play-reading sessions at Liverpool Central Library, and free theatre heritage walking tours, all targeted for communities in high deprivation areas of the Liverpool City Region.
ArtsGroupie are now applying with The National Lottery Heritage Fund to expand the work around the exhibition in what will be a large-scale effort to tackle the issue.
Liverpool Screenwriting legend, Alan Bleasdale (Boys from the Black Stuff, No Surrender) said:
In the summer of 1959, when I was thirteen, I was placed at the very bottom of the bottom class in my school, but I was very good at English. I never dreamt that I could make a career simply out of being very good at English, but I did. And if I can do it, so can you.
ArtsGroupie Co-Director, Mikey Garland said:
If the gatekeeping of the arts is not swiftly addressed, the UK’s arts scene is at risk of rapid stagnation. Artistic innovation cannot thrive when it is only represented by those who look the same, come from the same background and think the same way. Working-class life is depicted in film, television, and theatre all the time, but is told by people who have never lived it. They want our stories but won’t let us be the ones to tell them.
Lights Up on Liverpool will be open at the Hornby Library at Liverpool Central Library from November 2024 to February 2025.
More information about ArtsGroupie is available here.
