Co-authored by Rufus Norris & Martin Prendergast
Creativity can be taught to anyone. So why are we leaving it to private schools?
The UK’s creative industries are world leading. Excluding state-educated people from the arts will throw that excellence away.
The myth goes that the true artist is born, mysteriously fully formed in their own exceptional talent. A second myth holds that creativity thrives in adversity; a third that creative sorts are somehow morally wayward, something to be tolerated as long as the results are diverting, but not a model for citizenship. These three combine gloriously in the icon of a lascivious and poverty-stricken Mozart, writing sonatas while still in the womb.
