Eleven weeks ago, the BBC launched Culture in Quarantine - a broadcast and digital festival of the arts during a time of national lockdown. Since then we have been working tirelessly, collaborating with almost every major arts organisation as well as many smaller institutions. The result has been a remarkable roll-call of fast-turnaround programmes and events.
It has brought us everything from World Book Night and the Big Book Weekend to Friday dance classes with the Birmingham Royal Ballet and National Dance Company Wales; from #MuseumFromHome and Headlong’s Unprecedented theatre project to Women of the World and our Get Creative at Home masterclasses.
Our bespoke programming has included BBC Four’s Museums in Quarantine and BBC Two’s Lockdown Culture with Mary Beard, showcasing exclusive new work from major artists such as Margaret Atwood and Martin Scorsese. And there has been a daily schedule of Culture in Quarantine classical music programming on Radio 3, with the BBC Orchestras and Choirs, and the continuing support and coverage of Front Row and other topical shows on Radio 4.
At the start, the goal was simple. As exhibitions were shuttered, performances postponed, and access to the country’s cultural wealth curtailed, we wanted to keep the arts alive in people’s homes. And because we knew the impact on cultural organisations, freelance artists, and the wider arts community would be immeasurable, we wanted to do so in a way that could support the sector as much as possible.
The route ahead
Like many, I began by looking forward to the day the doors of UK cultural institutions would swing open once again and we could pick up as before. And like many I was quickly forced to realise that there will be no return to ‘culture as usual’.
While the weeks ahead may see many forms of retail opening again, culture will effectively remain in quarantine for some time. We will be living with the repercussions of this period for many years to come, and it’s already clear that certain parts of the sector will be more severely affected than others. Many theatres have had to face up to the fact they are unlikely to be able to produce new work until the second half of 2021. For some the consequences will be devastating.
What is heartening - and this is something that couldn’t be taken for granted - is how strong the public appetite for cultural experience has proved. Whether on the BBC or global platforms like the National Theatre’s YouTube channel, audience figures for cultural content are sky high. Book sales are up. And more people are creating at home than ever before.
Last month, our call for the public to join forces with BBC musicians in a ‘lockdown orchestra’ inspired over 1,500 video submissions in a single week. BBC Four’s Life Drawing Live saw over 26,000 people uploading pictures in just a few hours. Half a million people watched Museums in Quarantine while Museum from Home brought 75,000 visits to the site in one day.
The biggest challenge for the world of arts and culture isn’t a question of public appetite then, but of recovery and, in some cases, survival. Culture in Quarantine was set up as a short-term initiative to deal with the crisis as it unfolded day-by-day. But even as this first phase of lockdown comes to an end, it is clear that the role of the BBC remains as important as ever in serving audiences, supporting new work, and reflecting what is being done by cultural organisations and individuals across the UK.
The last three months have been defined by a spirit of co-creation - curating, commissioning, and producing with other organisations. As the whole cultural sector tries to get through the next few years, these new ways of working together need to become the norm. The collaboration must continue. And the BBC needs to be more, rather than less, present in the lives of artists and arts organisations in the future.
Imagine: This House Is Full Of Music
The second phase of Culture in Quarantine
What does this mean for Culture in Quarantine? In short, it will continue. So much is still uncertain, but I see it running in three phases through the year.
The first phase has been defined by frenetic activity and lo-fi ‘lockdown production’ methods. The results have been extraordinary, with highlights such as Headlong’s Unprecedented proving to be outstanding examples of what is now called ‘lockdown art’. But this phase is now coming to an end as certain forms of broadcast activity become possible once more.
The second phase of Culture in Quarantine will run through the summer. Last week we announced that the Proms will go ahead with a fantastic programme of new concerts in August and September - while adhering to social distancing guidelines. This week Radio 3 brought back live classical music to the nation with a series of twenty special concerts from Wigmore Hall that will run throughout June in the Lunchtime Concert slot.
During this time we will also broadcast the Lockdown Theatre Festival on Radio 3 and Radio 4, and a weekend of broadcast and digital activity supporting the spirit of the Edinburgh Festivals. And at the end of the month the BBC is recreating The Glastonbury Experience on air over the Glastonbury weekend, with classic performances from previous years.
Now we can announce that Radio 3 and BBC Four will broadcast the Royal Opera House’s first performances since lockdown with Tony Pappano. Radio 3 will broadcast the first concert live on 13 June. And in July, after the rebroadcast of Pappano’s acclaimed Opera Italia series, BBC Four will broadcast highlights from all three Royal Opera House performances. Alongside this, as part of a wider focus on opera, a number of performances will be made available on iPlayer from opera houses who have had to cancel their runs due to the present restrictions. They will include The Barber of Seville from Glyndebourne and The Turn of the Screw and The Marriage of Figaro from Garsington, and a performance filmed from backstage in La Traviata from Opera North.
We’ll also have a major new Beethoven series on BBC Four and a pre-lockdown performance from the Royal Opera House of Fidelio. This programming will join the wider pan-BBC Beethoven focus in the lead up to the BBC Proms and a Beethoven moment on the first night. BBC Radio 3 will also be broadcasting an audio drama of Beethoven with Peter Capaldi confirmed as the great composer, as well as regular composer of the weeks from Donald Macleod, essays and more.
We’re also delighted to have some stand-out classical documentaries on television. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his family’s lockdown experience will be featured in a new Imagine on BBC One presented by Alan Yentob which was shot remotely and will lead up to a concert that the talented family perform in the absence of open concert halls. To mark the retirement of one of the world’s most admired conductors, John Bridcut’s film for BBC Four, Bernard Haitink In His Own Words, will explore the secrets of the conductor’s art with Haitink himself and the international musicians who’ve worked with him in his 65-year career. And BBC Four will air Britten on Camera in coordination with the Aldeburgh Festival.
Meanwhile, BBC Children’s will be launching a huge focus on Shakespeare in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of BBC Bitesize Daily, our biggest ever push on education. It will see famous RSC actors including Niamh Cusack, Bally Gill, Natalie Simpson and Jamie Wilkes do readings for schoolchildren and will include special online lessons.
Phase 3: Raising the ambition
The third phase of Culture in Quarantine will begin in the autumn. We will continue to run the BBC Arts and iPlayer pages as we have been the last few months, under the title of Culture in Quarantine, and ensure that our regular cultural programmes stay on air whether from living rooms or safe and appropriate spaces. And we will continue to launch new initiatives and programmes designed to connect audiences with the cultural experiences they need.
Meanwhile, BBC Radio 3 will keep its crusade to keep live classical music alive in a time of closed venues. Following the success of the Wigmore Hall live concerts, we will return to the venue again for more specially-created live performances after the Proms Season.
But we want to raise our ambition still higher. That means building even further on some of the collaborations we began over the last few months, including special projects focused on museums and galleries, the performing arts, and the world of books and poetry.
In many cases the public will remain unable to return to the cultural spaces they love, but they will still crave the experiences they used to find there. And they will more and more expect high-quality production to return to our televisions and devices. Our goal will be to rise to this challenge, and harness and reward the increased spirit of cultural participation we have seen over the last months.
The programme is still developing, but I want to pick out two important initiatives. Off the back of the Proms, we plan to launch a new online classical experience to open up access to the BBC’s unique archives. Listeners will be able to explore hundreds of performances in our classical treasure-trove, and delve deeper into the music and composers behind them through episodes of Composer of the Week, The Listening Service and many more.
I can also announce that we’re starting work now on a landmark, seven-part new arts series for 2021. It will be our follow up to Civilisations, which has now become the most-watched arts programme of the last 50 years with nearly 5 million requests to view on iPlayer alone. The Making of Us: The History of British Creativity will be told through a wide cast of artists, makers, creators, and historians who will explore the artistic revolutions that have driven the nation’s story over the last thousand years.
I’m proud of what the BBC has achieved during this crisis, hand-in-glove with the whole cultural sector. It has been a period of incredible invention by artists and arts organisations, but the fact that the BBC can connect their work with our audiences has proved hugely powerful.
It has left me more convinced than ever that the BBC has an essential role to play as ringmaster and champion for the arts in this country. In a period of extreme difficulty, we must work harder than ever to secure the future of British creativity and support the arts and artists that make British culture the envy of the world.