Prof. Paul Allain - University of Kent

It is with great dismay that I heard the very bad news about your severe and imminent funding cut. I am writing this letter of support to ask the Arts Council to reconsider their decision.

I have to point out that this is the only letter I have written about these cuts, but I have been as disturbed as most of my colleagues about the manner and severity of these across the UK. What compels me to write now is the significance of CPR's work even to me, even though I am based in Kent and can rarely attend any of their activities. But my academic career began on the initiative of CPR in 1988 in bringing over a remarkable Polish theatre group Gardzienice to the UK, and has been enabled and supported ever since. I have had frequent contact with them subsequently, and am very aware of their reputation internationally, the importance of the work they do in putting Wales and Aberystwyth on the map, and the substantial amount they have done for the theatre profession as much as the academy. The various manifestations of this are multiple, and not something to list here for they are well known and widely recognised. But they serve only to make this decision all the more surprising and regrettable.

I ask you to rescind your decision in order to allow CPR the stability it needs to keep up the vital work it has done now for many years and with such success.

Yours sincerely

Paul Allain

Paul Allain
Professor of Theatre and Performance

Director of the AHRC-funded British Grotowski Project

University of Kent