Countdown to Takeoff!

Friends and colleagues are arriving at Darlington Arts Centre in advance of tomorrow's Takeoff Festival, the 23rd Takeoff and the third consecutive festival hosted with our partners at Darlington Arts Centre.

Takeoff is a celebration of the best of children's theatre from the UK and abroad and a meeting place for the sector to come together to discuss the issues that face us as makers, funders, promoters and programmers of theatre for young audiences.

The festival is packed to the brim with treats, a sell-out with more delegates attending than ever before, but it is sadly overshadowed by the news of proposals from Darlington Borough Council of the plans to remove the Council's subsidy of the arts by 100%. This will almost certainly mean the sale or closure of both the Arts Centre and the Civic Theatre.

The partnerships at Darlington Arts Centre have ensured a brilliant offer for children and young people through Theatre Hullabaloo, National Association of Youth Theatres and the professional programme of theatre in the Arts Centre which will be lost to Darlington if an alternative venue is not secured. Theatre Hullabaloo will need a new home and we will need to take the festival with us. This is sad for us and for the local schools, children and families that have inspired our work, but it is particularly sad for future generations of Darlington children and young people who have had such a uniquely excellent arts offer, particularly through Takeoff, that has not directly cost the Council a penny, but has benefited so many.  

The savagery of the cuts to Local Authority budgets, in combination with nearly 30% cut to funds distributed by the Arts Council, will hit arts provision of all kinds across the country and we will be much the poorer for the loss of a local arts centre, the closure of a rural touring company, the reduction in youth theatre provision. We must reinvent and refocus ourselves in response to this new climate and much good will come from the creative thinking that is needed to salvage the best of what we have achieved.

In the light of the extent of Darlington Council's cuts to its arts provision it is difficult, however, to escape the fact that these cuts are an attack on the very essence of our communities, that precious place where we can come together to dream of a better world. We need that place now more than ever.  Miranda.