The Glasshouse music centre in Gateshead is used to seeing big names on its stages, but it was VIPs of a different nature that held forth there last week.
As Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Chris Bryant, Minister for the Creative Industries, announced a multimillion-pound package for the cultural sector, the audience included mayors, MPs and council leaders, as well as former TV historian Tristram Hunt, now director of the V&A museum in London.
The Creative Industries Summit not only brought together the main players of that sector on Tyneside but also had two significant boosts for the region: a £5m grant to set up a centre for writing in Newcastle (likely to be at Bolbec Hall, near Central Station) and the same amount towards a project to replace the National Glass Centre in Sunderland.
The announcements came at a time of real momentum for the cultural industries in the North East, with the Crown Works studios project in Sunderland aiming to bring major TV and film productions – as well as thousands of jobs – to the region. The work of North East Screen has helped bring a number of blockbuster film productions to the region, with the zombies of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later stalking the hills of Northumberland and actress Jennifer Saunders declaring that “everything should be made up here” after her experience on the film Night and Day.
In music, entertainment giant Warner Brothers is planning to create a ‘world class’ music studio in Newcastle city centre as part of a partnership with sector body Generator based around keeping talent in the region, while this week Sunderland has been named a global music city, praised for its “proud and storied heritage of music, and an exciting future ahead.” Newcastle-Gateshead is trying to follow Sunderland in gaining music city status and next month will see the Mobo awards take place in Newcastle.
(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
The region’s cultural reputation is being burnished too by big names. Geordie songwriter Sam Fender is selling out arenas and stadiums around the country as he prepares to release a new album, and millions of people watched as the region’s scenery was showcased one last time by the final episodes of ITV crime drama Vera.
With the regional arts scene in rude health, it was to the North East that the Government brought its summit whose overwhelming message was that arts and culture are not just “nice to have”. Contributing £124bn to the UK economy and growing faster that most other sectors, the creative industries are also becoming a key part of the new Government’s drive to grow the UK economy. And with several big projects now getting under way in the North East, the region is leading the way.
New Writing North chief executive Claire Malcolm, who has spearheaded the project to set up the writing centre in Newcastle, said the North East was having “a really exciting time.”
She said: “I want young people to grow up here not only thinking they can be the writers of the future but also that they can have jobs in the written word, in publishing, in the media and in all the jobs that revolve around writing – like film and television, which this region is really powering up. This centre for writing is part of an infrastructure for changing how creative industries happen in the region. It’s going to be a really powerful, real game-changing endeavour for us.
“We’re in a moment when those questions around why does everything have to be in London have slightly been blown out of the water. It’s clear that the talent is here and now we have the way to enable the investment and the partnerships. It’s a really exciting time and the North East seems to be doing something that a lot of other regions aren’t, which is working out how we bridge those partnerships between cultural organisations and the commercial sector in a really interesting way.”
Those views were echoed by North East mayor Kim McGuinness, who said: “This is our chance to shape the future, to show what is possible and to get on and do it.”
She added: “This is our chance to lift our places, to lift our people and so it won’t surprise anyone that when I was elected mayor I said that I wanted to move the creative and cultural industries from being an economic add-on, reliant on short-term grants, to being central, at the heart of economic plans for growth.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing in this region. We’ve started working on a 10-year plan to transform the North East. We want to turn this into the beating heart of creativity in the UK.”
Some of the early beneficiaries of the Government support for creative industries have already been announced, with Newcastle costume design and props company Orbital FX getting a £100,000 investment from Creative UK’s Culture and Creative Investment Programme and award-winning South Shields film and TV production company Red Stamp Productions sealing a £30,000 grant from Innovate UK to fund a new studio.
Connor Langley, producer and director at Red Stamp Productions, said: “The North East’s creative industry is growing at an incredible pace, and we’re excited to be part of it. The demand for our space has been overwhelming, with bookings already coming in. We’re proud that our grant will help us support local filmmakers to do everything they need right here at home, while also facilitating international productions around the world.”
View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-easts-creative-industries-boosted-30841086
