NSDF

The bevy of blogs responding to Arts Council England, Yorkshire's decision to cut funding for the National Student Drama Festival has occasioned a fair amount of personal soul-searching.

Like everyone else, I had some of my most important formative experiences at NSDF. Hell, I trump everyone else's stories: I met my wife there. Future generations will owe their lives to the Festival.

Unlike everyone else, I live and work in Yorkshire. I rely, to put it rather cruelly, on some organisations not getting funding in order that I might eat. For me to sign the petition would send to ACE Yorkshire - and my name would be noticed among the signatories - a very peculiar message: "don't fund me, fund them."

Nevertheless, I say, in full knowledge of the peculiar personal position this puts me in: Don't fund me, fund them.

Everything everyone else has said about how NSDF contributes more to the future of theatre for £52k than any of the region's producing theatres do for several times that figure is so obviously right that I don't need to rehash their arguments here: follow the links in the first sentence. I'll give you one more NSDF alumnus to be going on with: Alan Lane, winner, with his excellent company Slung Low, of this year's Samuel Beckett Award. By his own account everyone hated his two shows at NSDF. I'm guessing that's not quite true, but the work he makes now is fantastic and I've been proud to be involved in some of it (now that I think about it, that probably constitutes a declaration of interest. But honestly, I'm never deliberately nice about work I don't like, even when I like the people who made it).

But there is one key sticking point that no-one addresses and is, I think, worth looking at.

ACE Yorkshire's remit is, in large part, to support the arts infrastructure in its region. Producing theatres undoubtedly do that. Touring theatre companies do that not only by developing and producing work in the region, but also by becoming known as, e.g. "Leeds-based Unlimited Theatre", or "Sheffield-based Third Angel" or "Sheffield-based Forced Entertainment". I could go on, but you get the point: these companies bring kudos back to the region's arts scene.

Yet NSDF is a peculiar anomaly: it does very little for the region. Almost none of its alumni goes on to work here: they all go to London. Lane, my wife and myself are very rare exceptions. The work is not seen primarily by people from the region. It makes no dent on the regional media: when I was working as a journalist I repeatedly pitched articles on NSDF to the Northern Echo and the Yorkshire Post, but they weren't interested; it wasn't a story for them. Funding NSDF doesn't actually hit any of ACE Yorkshire's direct funding priorities.

Still, it should be funded. It's a unique organisation and like any unique organisation, it falls between gaps left by more conventional models. A stunning number of people from every individual festival go on to work professionally in the industry. Maybe they would have done so anyway - but almost every single one of them will cite NSDF as a huge influence, a turning point. There are fifty-two years worth of stories like Lane's. It's important. Its funding should be a national priority.