arts by Tim Lezard


Music > Musicians are under the financial cosh during the Covid-19 crisis, and the Musicians’ Union estimates its members lost £21 million in income between the start of the crisis and the beginning of June. Its new Keep Music Alive campaign


(https://tinyurl.com/y89l52h2) is calling for “an equitable, sustainable and transparent model for royalty distribution in the streaming era”. Keith Ames, editor of The Musician and an NUJ member, tells Arts that streaming services (which pay an average of £0.006p per play) “wouldn’t pay for a loaf of bread, let alone a mortgage”.


NUJ life member Raphael Callaghan


has sent in his latest CD, BLUE LiES. The former newspaper sub combined a journalism career with playing acoustic blues for 50 years. His summer tour dates have been cancelled but he hopes to hit the road in November. You can buy his album at https://tinyurl.com/y89l52h2.


, Spotlight > Theatre: the show must go online


The arts have taken more of a pasting from coronavirus than Dominic Cummings. The UK theatre scene is


struggling, with reports that 70 per cent of performing arts companies will be out of business by the end of the


year and more than 1,000 theatres are at risk of closure. Thousands of entertainment workers have lost their jobs. Actors’ union Equity


points out that the vast majority of performers, stage managers and creative


practitioners earn modest sums, and the loss of income has been devastating. The union has launched


an appeal to help those affected, with 50 British actors filming monologues from their homes during


lockdown to raise money. Watch these at https:// tinyurl.com/y7jnldlo and donate at https://tinyurl.com/ ycskxovd. You can get your


online theatre fix at https://official londontheatre.com/ get-your-theatre- fix, which lists


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what productions are being shown when. Most of them are screened free, so please consider making a donation.


unused footage, it aims to challenge the old film’s suggestion that the band members didn’t like each other. You don’t need a cinema to see


Comedy > Comedians are doing their best to entertain us online but, without live audiences, even they admit they lose their edge. That doesn’t stop them, though. Check out who’s doing what and when at https://tinyurl.com/ y9mmwkf8, updated daily.


Film > Cinemas are starting back in business now following their lengthy closure with many large chains reopening gradually. Here are a couple of films due out in September. Dame Judi Dench stars as below-


average medium Madame Acarti in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Invited to a novelist’s house to conduct a seance as research for his new book, she accidentally summons the spirit of his first wife, riling his second wife, who can neither see nor hear her. The second is The Beatles: Get Back – a documentary about the documentary shot in early 1969 for the following year’s Let It Be. Drawing on


The Big Meeting, Daniel Draper’s documentary about the Durham Miners’ Gala. It would have been easy for him to focus on the big names, but it’s all the better for telling the story of the day through the eyes of ordinary punters. A powerful pageant of workingclass pride, a set piece of passionate political theatre and a stirring story of solidarity and defiance, it’ll warm your heart. You can buy the film on DVD or pay to watch it on Vimeo via https://www. galafilm.co.uk/watch. And you don’t need a cinema to


enjoy Lockdown Cinema, which is showing films celebrating trade unions and workingclass life. Backed by Ken Loach, the films – the full programme has yet to be released – can be rented online. Follow @lockdown_cinema on Twitter for details.


Books > I doubt Madame Arcati could have predicted just how prescient It’s The Media, Stupid (https://tinyurl.com/ y9mmwkf8) would become. Take this, from the book’s preface: “There were signs during the election that Boris Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings … would move against those sections of the media they deemed recalcitrant or too critical.” Perhaps even more important now


than when it was published, it features contributions from academics, journalists and trade unionists. Also prescient is Len McCluskey’s


book Why You Should Be A Trade Unionist (https://tinyurl.com/ ybcqfnzn). As unions, including the NUJ, witness a surge in membership, this short part autobiography, part


history and part polemic sees Unite’s general secretary make the case for collective organisation. NUJ freelance member Brandon


Broll has wasted no time writing a book about coronavirus. Entitled Still-life of a Pandemic, his five-part poem tells of a father’s short, fatal journey after contracting Covid-19 as healthcare workers try to save him. You can buy the ebook at https:// tinyurl.com/y7dx599l; all proceeds go to the World Health Organisation.


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