Terry Candy's intemperate and offensive letter (Ocotober 6) betrays deep ignorance. The Ashcroft Theatre has, for a long time for reasons no doubt best known to itself, ceased to provide quality drama.
As a consequence, the Warehouse has been an oasis, albeit a small one on the fringe, in what is a theatrical cultural desert in Croydon. To remove its subsidy, therefore, would be to deprive the borough of its sole purveyor of serious drama.
The performing arts to which theatre makes a major contribution, like the visual arts, have traditionally depended on subvention of one sort or another. If public subsidy does not replace the private patronage of past ages, they will cease to exist.
The Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera, and the English National Opera, to mention only the most well-known, would not survive without subsidy. Would Mr Candy be happy to see all these centres of excellence go to the wall?
He obviously does not appreciate the culture has nothing to do with making money, that aesthetic excellence and the market make strange bed-fellows.
The cultural health of a community is vitally important and money spent on the arts should be viewed as an essential ingredient of the educational budget.
ROBIN HOWARD Upfield Croydon
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