Exchange in Nottingham for 12 years.
“Of course there is a political agenda.
But levelling up — regardless of who you
vote for — is probably going to make a
difference because resources are being
redistributed to new fertile ground.”
Yet this confidence in the transform-
ative impact of the arts can be double-
edged. One museum director (who
asked to remain anonymous because
his institution receives large amounts
of public money) worries that the “gov-
ernment is using the arts as a sticking
plaster to cover some deep-rooted
social issues”. And this could be
thrown into sharp relief once the cost
of living crisis starts to bite.
Gateshead council has warned the
Baltic to prepare for an influx of visitors
next autumn and winter — peopletrying to keep warm because they can’t
afford to turn on their heating. Local
authority spending cuts and library
closures mean that free public spaces
are in shorter supply. Recognising a
need from poor families who can’t
afford to buy drinks and snacks, the
Baltic has turned its once commercially
run café into a free space called the
Front Room, serving complimentary
tea and coffee. Free food and drinks
are on offer at the mobile gallery.
Museums and galleries across the
country are preparing to step up as the
cost of living crisis sets in. At Towner
Eastbourne on the Sussex coast, the
director, Joe Hill, said that he was “so
aware of the erosion of public space” in
the town — with libraries, Sure Start
centres and community halls closing —
that he decided to redesign the
contemporary gallery’s ground floor. A
free public library, studio spaces and a
relaxed space for neurodiverse young
people opened at the gallery, home to
an Eric Ravilious collection. “I’m talk-
ing about it as a sort of village hall:
open all the time, free for community
use,” Hill says. “The building can be a
safe space for lots of people just to get
warm or a place to go if it’s raining.”
Other galleries have been providing
respite for longer. Firstsite in Colches-
ter, the winner of the Art Fund museum
of the year prize for 2021, has been run-
ning free activities and providing meals
to those struggling to make ends meet
during school holidays for about five
years. At Derby Museums, the director,
Tony Butler, said that, come autumn, he
would have to ensure his buildings are
“available to people if they are cold
and unable to heat their homes” as his
three sites are “heated all the time”.
This month organisations that
receive more than £2 million of public
funding are expected to tell Arts Council
England how they intend to help the
levelling-up process. Dorries has made
it clear that they must increase their
activity by 15 per cent in the designated
priority areas, but this must come out of
their existing funds. While the national
museums in London are exempt, per-
forming arts organisations based in the
capital are considered an easier target,
as are regional arts organisations.
When the Baltic Centre opened in
July 2002 its mission was to become the
Tate Modern of the north. In a nod to
its former life as a flour mill, free loaves
were given to a few hundred visitors in
a PR stunt that, 20 years on, looks
prophetic. The slogan for the Baltic
was “a place where art can be seen
and made”. Perhaps it should be
changed to “a place to keep warm
and carry on”. cKirsty Lang is chairwoman
of trustees of the
Baltic Centre for
Contemporary
Art in
Gateshead‘I
didn’t really think that we
would ever come back,” says
Borgen’s creator, Adam Price.
“But then a story began to
emerge. It was very political,
quite international and also had
a few thriller elements and I was all of a
sudden struck by lightning. I thought,
‘This is almost like... a Borgen story.’”
It has been ten years since the Danish
show was last on screens. No one could
have predicted that a Danish-language
drama about centrist politics, poll num-
bers and pension plans, starring an all-
Danish ensemble unknown outside their
home country, could be so gripping.
The new series, which will stream to
190 countries on Netflix, begins with a
big oil discovery in Greenland, officially
part of Denmark, although it was
granted self-rule in 2009. Greenland
does indeed have vast natural resources
and is also on the front line of climate
change: in 2019 Donald Trump offered
to “buy” Greenland from Denmark.
And so once again Borgen, a show of
well-designed lamps and moderate pol-
itics that could hardly be more Danish,
finds itself telling an international story.
It’s just that this time it will also be
streamed to an international audience.
So do you remember who’s who —
and what have the actors been up to in
the past decade?Sidse Babett Knudsen
Birgitte Nyborg
The woman who became statsminister
in series one is back as foreign minis-
ter, this time trying to protect Green-
land’s oil from corporate interests, and
clashing with the new statsminister.
“Borgen meant a lot to me because
I’ve never done anything that had so
much of a response,” she says. “And no
matter what I’ve done since, people say,
‘Will there be another Borgen?’ Obvi-
ously we touched something there.”
In the interim Knudsen
has starred in HBO’s West-
world, the Danish hit
1864 and David Hare’s
Roadkill. When Price
came to her with his new
idea she says she
was curious. “Bir-
gitte has always
been an old-
fashioned kind of
girl with old-
fashioned values.
And I feel like I’m
150 years old in
this day and age.
So I thought, how
is she doing?”BORGEN IS BACK!
Birgitte Hjort
Sorensen
Katrine Fonsmark
We met Katrine as a
crusading reporter
before she was picked
up as Birgitte Nyborg’s head of press. In
the new series she is back in journal-
ism, where she has landed a job as
head of the news department for one of
the big TV stations. But with a manoeu-
vring Birgitte on speed dial she has to
decide if she’s being fed the best scoops
— or used as a client journalist.
After Borgen Sorensen appeared as a
Wildling chieftain in Game of Thrones, a
stern German a cappella singer in Pitch
Perfect 2, and as one of Andy Warhol’s
Factory friends in HBO’s Vinyl. She
then transferred to Broadway, starring
opposite Janet McTeer and Liev
Schreiber in the Donmar production of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
“I got... not fed up of America... I had
a wonderful adventure, but I needed to
be at home,” she said. On returning to
Denmark in 2018 she starred in the
Homeland-style thriller Greyzone before
returning to the show that made her big.Pilou Asbaek
Kasper Juul
Asbaek was Borgen’s
breakout star, playing
the roguish spin doctor
(and Katrine’s lover)
Kasper. But he is conspicuously absent
from this series. Asbaek’s explanation
on Twitter merely said, “ps: been told
a season 4 is being made. Sadly I won’t
be part of it,” leading to speculation that
he was not approached.
Or it may be because he is too busy.
After Borgen Asbaek appeared in Game
of Thrones as Euron Greyjoy for three
seasons, before embarking on a Holly-
wood career that has taken in everything
from Ghost in the Shell to the forthcom-
ing remake of Salem’s Lot.Soren Malling
Torben Friis
Malling was already a
star in the UK thanks
to his role as Sarah
Lund’s sidekick Jan
Meyer in The Killing. In Borgen he plays
the TV news editor Torben, who is once
again working with Katrine.
After Borgen Malling appeared in
1864 , the Danish historical drama. But
unlike his co-stars he has restricted his
work to Denmark and Danish-language
productions. cBorgen streams on Netflix fromThursday
But ten years on, who’s who in the Danish drama
and what have they been up to? By Benji Wilson
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