Opinion with Dr Audrey Tang

‘I feel like a scientist talking about the environment – we keep banging on about this every year, but no-one seems to listen,’ said Emma Kendrick, artistic director of Laugh Out Loud Theatre Company, discussing the defunding of the arts.

The most recent report by the Office for National Statistics commissioned by Arts Council England found that ‘The arts and culture industry… now contributes £10.8bn a year to the UK economy…[and] the sector contributes…363,700 jobs.’

Beyond that, there is even greater impact. ‘All the world's a stage and the men and women merely players’ – a phrase written by Shakespeare, and used to introduce my PhD in the field of business psychology. I studied emotional labour – performative emotion within a job role, such as a teacher having to remain upbeat despite a behaviourally challenging lesson (and a key factor contributing to burnout).