6 1GT Friday November 27 2020 | the times
OLI SCARFF/GETTY IMAGESA
t least worrying
about Covid has
saved the arts world
from a year of
fixated fulminations
about Brexit. If you
don’t know whether
your organisationwill even exist in six months, the
complexities of touring Europe or
recruiting EU citizens fade into
insignificance.
Or at least, they did. With only 35
days of transition left, however, I am
picking up distress signals from many
arts leaders trying to get their heads
round the new rules. Or, worse, trying
to anticipate those not even decided
yet. In the slightly dubious hope that
sorrows shared are sorrows halved, let
me list some issues causing alarm.
Whether there’s a deal or not, one
thing is clear: touring Europe won’t be
simple for British performers. True,
some countries have exemptions from
work permits for cultural activities.
In other words, you turn up at the
border, wave your contract to perform
in that country and, theoretically, you
will be allowed to work for 30 days
without a visa.
The hassle is knowing which
countries. For instance, France and
Germany yes; Italy no. Get a booking
at La Scala in Milan, and you will
need a work visa in advance from the
Italian embassy. Multiply that by 70
for a symphony orchestra, and then
by the number of countries on your
tour that require a visa, and you are
running up a vast expenditure in
time and fees.
That’s a minor issue, however,
compared with the uncertainty over
national insurance. Within the EU all
countries respect each other’s social
security arrangements; you simply get
a magic form called an A1 certificate
to say that you pay national insurance
in your homeland. It’s possible that
this system will continue, but also
very possible it won’t.
France, for example, has
categorically stated that it won’t accept
British A1 certificates after Brexit. Italy
and Spain seem likely to take the same
line. For a British company touring
Europe, such deductions could run
into tens of thousands of pounds,
perhaps making a tour unviable.
Health insurance is another
unknown. If we get a deal, it’s likely
to include continuing the European
Health Insurance Card, giving visitors
access to health provision in all
European countries. If we don’t,
the cost of getting travel insurance
to cover, say, a British company
touring Les Misérables around the
capitals of Europe could soar to
stratospheric levels.
Whether there’s a deal or not, two
other problems loom. One is that
anyone moving goods temporarily
from Britain to Europe will need a
carnet — a docket that needs to be
physically stamped going out and
coming back, on both sides of the
border, certifying that the goods
(which could include instruments,
scenery, costumes and film equipment)
are for use on the tour, not for sale.
The difficulty here is not just the
paperwork involved, but also the
time factor. A British orchestra, for
instance, would typically do a London
concert, then load its instruments into
a truck that evening. The truck would
make its way overnight to, say, Paris
or Amsterdam so a concert could
happen the next evening. Now
ensembles have been told to add
48 hours to the journey because the
truck will have to queue at Dover
so the carnet can be stamped.
It’s mad. Working musicians can’t
be without their instruments for three
days. And, incidentally, a carnet may
also be needed for movement between
Britain and Northern Ireland. The
government “can’t say” yet.Then there’s Cites. Unless you
possess, say, a string bow with a bit
of ivory in it, or an oboe made from
Brazilian rosewood, you have no need
to know what that is. For thousands
of British musicians, though, the
Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species is about to
loom large in their lives.
They will need to go to instrument
dealers and get a certificate saying
that, although their instrument
includes material from an endangered
species, that material was legally
obtained. And if the instrument
doesn’t include such material, but
looks as if it does, you should get a
certificate anyway. Persuading a
stroppy French customs official that
your precious string bow contains
mammoth ivory (legal) rather thanelephant ivory (illegal after a certain
date) could be exasperating, especially
for those with a hazy recall of French
vocab. Of course, when we were in
the EU we could cross borders inside
Europe without bothering about
Cites at all.
Anything else? Well, only the
massive web of new rules affecting
the recruitment of foreign performers
and technicians by British companies,
and of foreign students by British
conservatoires. It’s fair to say that
orchestras, opera houses and dance
companies are more sanguine about
this now that the salary threshold for
immigrant workers has been reduced
to £27,600. And there’s also an
argument that (as a disgruntled British
musician said to me) “at least fewer
foreigners will give more opportunities
for homegrown musicians”. Well,
possibly — but not, of course, more
opportunities to work in Germany,
where a lot of the work is.
As for our performing arts colleges,
there is no upside to Brexit. They will
lose vast numbers of EU students, and
vital income with it. And their British
graduates will find it far harder to
land a job in Europe.
Cheer up, though. There’s still a
month left to sort out the problems.
Miracles happen. Handel composed
Messiah in 24 days. Dostoevsky wrote
The Gambler in 26 — as light relief,
moreover, while working on his day
job, Crime and Punishment.
One more thing. As we leave
the EU-funded Creative Europe
programme, which has awarded
grants worth millions to hundreds
of UK projects, so the EU has
agreed a massive increase in that
organisation’s budget, from £1.25 billion
to £2 billion. Talk about rubbing salt
in our wounds.
Of course, the money the British
government will save by not
participating in Creative Europe could
be transferred directly into arts
budgets here. Don’t hold your breath.Richard Morrison The arts column
What a tangled web Brexit is weaving
for British performers’ return to Europe The BBC is so
keen to attract
youth that it’s
neglecting its
core viewers, says
Andrew Billen
T
rying to be all things
to all people is the
ultimate fool’s errand
— and it has been the
BBC’s for almost 100
years. Its funding gives
it no choice. By law
the BBC taxes every
British household in which someone
wishes to watch or record (or, in
the early days, listen to) anything
transmitted across an airwave. For its
first 33 years this was not an onerous
obligation. Beyond Radio Luxembourg
and Lord Haw-Haw, the BBC had no
competition. Then, in 1955, came ITV,
a network whose progenitors were
impresarios, not a Presbyterian Scot.
Now, in the age of the streaming
service, the BBC exists in a busy
hypermarket of content.
Netflix, Amazon, Disney and its
other rivals operate under the cosh
of capitalism, and may envy the
£3.7 billion delivered by the licence
fee, but with financial freedom comes
restriction of content. The BBC is
obliged not only to touch everyone,
but to be distinctive, diverse,
educational and impartial. It must be
responsible, but it must also take risks.
And each year its regulator, Ofcom,
issues a report card. This week’s
contained bad news alongside the
praise, and it came from the over-55s.
They are watching and valuing the
BBC’s offerings less. That’s worrying.
Why? Because the average age of a
BBC One viewer is 61.
At first these grumbles from its
longest-standing audiences may seem
paradoxical if not ungrateful. Strictly
Come Dancing is as big as ever. Monty
Don spread his green fingers all over
confined Middle England in the
spring. Alan Bennett, as near a secular
saint as David Attenborough, had his
Talking Heads redone for Covid.
Drama with middle-age appeal
bloomed: The Salisbury Poisonings,
Strike, The Trial of Christine Keeler.
But audiences know that there is
a world elsewhere, and even the old
found it this lockdown. Almost a third
of 55 to 64-year-olds used streaming
services in their initial incarceration,
up from a quarter pre-lockdown.
Fifteen per cent of over-64s took to
them too, up from 12 per cent. That’s
understandable. Having new rivals
practically guarantees a smaller
market share for the BBC.
The stinger, however, comes on page
19 of the Ofcom report. A chart there
(only slightly easier to read than one
of Jonathan Van-Tam’s) has two
arrows pointing down and to the left.
They record declines from 55 to 64-
year-olds and 65-pluses not only in
their BBC consumption, but with their
satisfaction. The latter is crucial. WeEmma Corrin in
Netflix’s The Crown
and Paul Mescal and
Daisy Edgar-Jones
in the BBC’s Normal
People. Below: Jodie
Comer in Killing EveThere is great uncertainty about how things will work after the transition period
Costs for a British
company touring
Les Mis will be
stratospheric
Older
viewers
may decide
that shows
such as
Normal
People
are for
younger
folk
It’s a turn-off
Netflix
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