It feels like we're being punished for being in the North

Maxine Peake and others stars of stage and screen despair as arts council cuts funding for Oldham's Coliseum theatre

- CHARLOTTE GREEN, JENNA CAMPBELL

IT'S A GREY, blustery Wednesday afternoon in Oldham town centre, but despite the miserable weather, Heather Tomkinson is out and about, making a beeline for the Oldham Coliseum to buy tickets for the last shows before they stop from the end of March.

Heather and her husband Michael have been coming to the Coliseum since the 1980s, after they heard a radio adaptation of the Howard Goodall play Girlfriends and booked tickets to see it in Oldham.

This week, the Fairbottom Street theatre, which in its 135-year history has helped launch the careers of countless Northern stars, announced it would be cancelling all upcoming shows after losing its entire Arts Council England (ACE) funding, despite the fact the town is supposed to be one of the priority 'Levelling Up for Culture' areas.

The venue, one of the oldest still operating in Britain, formerly received around £600,000 a year from ACE, but lost its subsidy in a funding shake-up announced in November. With a funding gap of almost £2 million, the theatre says the current financial situation is not sustainable.

Having relied on funding from ACE for several years, and because Oldham was listed as a 'Levelling Up for Culture' place by ACE, the Coliseum hoped it would remain in the Portfolio for 2023-2026, however its application for £615,182 a year to 2026, totalling £1.84 million was unsuccessful.

Arts Council England said it had received a 'record-breaking' number of applications and consequently had to make 'difficult decisions' on where to distribute funding. Nonetheless, ACE says it has set aside £1.8m for the arts in Oldham. Just not for the Coliseum.

Now, its new season, including its hugely popular pantomime Sleeping Beauty, has been scrapped and its future lies in doubt. Its a hammer blow not only to the arts sector in the North, but the people of Oldham, whose treasured Coliseum represents much more than a theatre.