Writer and comedian Josie Long has made a short film for the BBC which neatly captures the reasons why arts venues and programmes are so important to suburban communities, those which are seen as “not pretty enough to be in Kent, and not exciting enough to be in London.”
The argument resonates with my work last year on Fun Palaces and the ongoing debate around arts access in Australia.
Check out Josie Long’s report from last Friday’s edition of Artsnight.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 
Sounds intriguing, but I’m having no luck at all playing the clip. Is it regionally blocked (I’m in the US)?
It is possible. I just checked using Hola, set to US, and it still played for me – but I’m in London and don’t know how the BBC iPlayer checks which region you’re watching from…
Frustrating. I’ve tried IE, FF, and Chrome… I can play other videos in the BBC Arts section, just not that one. I will have to fire up Hola and give that a try… thanks for the lead 🙂
Good luck 😉