For this performance I deliver an excerpt from the former Culture Secretary Maria Miller’s speech entitled ‘Testing Times: Fighting Culture’s Corner in an Age of Austerity‘, which was first delivered to Parliament in April 2013. In contradiction to the claims of the title, Maria Miller’s message is quite clearly that the arts must not be exempt from the overall thrashing and burning of public benefits and services that were rampant by the then con-dem coalition government. Instead she argues that the arts must prove their economic and commercial viability. If my re-performance of her speech accompanied by a punchy powerpoint does not make this clear, my bursting into a flashy dance routine to a medley of songs should do the trick. The choreography includes lady-like twirls, chorus-girl jazz-hands and thumping hip-hop moves to a medley of Ethel Merman’s “There’s no business like showbusiness”, Abba’s “Money, Money Money” and Jay Z’s “Mo Money, Mo Cash, Mo Hoes”.
