I may run the risk of triggering unwanted memories, but it feels essential to look at where Scottish culture was this time last year before turning the page for a new chapter.
Scottish culture was in a state of collective anxiety as 2025 dawned, with arts organisations, festivals and venues in an agonising period of limbo about their future funding.
A three-month decision-making delay on crucial applications for Scottish Government funding was the latest in a series of crushing blows for an industry yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
The postponement of Creative Scotland’s announcement – due in October 2024 – came after a roll call of funding cuts, spending squeezes and undelivered promises, culminating in the shutdown of a vital “open fund” for artists.
A new stage and backstage facilities have been installed at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh ahead of its planned reopening in the summer of 2026. (Image: Anneleen Lindsay)
That three-month delay emerged exactly 12 months after the then First Minister Humza Yousaf committed the government to an additional £100m in arts funding.
It was not until just before Christmas in 2024 that Creative Scotland finally received confirmation of a £40m increase in its budget, spread over two years and ringfenced for its long-awaited multi-year funding programme.
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If Creative Scotland’s board, staff and management were able to sleep easier over the 2024-25 festive season, that was certainly not the case for the 281 applicants for long-term funding.
Some of that collective anxiety which had the arts industry in its grip this time last year could undoubtedly be traced to Creative Scotland’s handling of the previous year old long-term funding decisions in 2018.
Pupils from Broughton Primary School joined singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean as work began on the Dunard Centre, Edinburgh’s first new concert hall for more than a century. (Image: Ian Georgeson)
An angry backlash, an unprecedented government intervention and partial u-turns over 100 per cent cuts for 20 previously-funded organisations effectively cost Creative Scotland’s then chief executive, Janet Archer, her job.
After a bruising few years struggling to defend or explain the targeting of the arts for cuts, culture secretary Angus Robertson made it clear he expected Creative Scotland to ensure as many organisations as possible secured long-term funding.
Angus Robertson is Scotland’s culture secretary. (Image: PA)
That collective anxiety became a huge outpouring of relief last January when it emerged that a record 264 organisations had been offered long-term support.
At the time, grumblings were understandably muted, with one notable exception.
The revamped Paisley Museum is due to reopen in the second half of 2026. (Image: Gordon Terris)
Increasing the number of organisations with long-term funding from the previous tally of 119 was a hugely impressive achievement and a far preferable outcome to the 2018 debacle.
There is no doubt that the successful organisations would have preferred to have seen their full funding increases in place last April rather than staggered across two years.
Many were no doubt disappointed that they did not receive the full amount they applied for, although organisations largely keep their opinions to themselves on this front.
The government and Creative Scotland did not, of course, emerge from the biggest round of arts funding decisions for seven years unscathed.
Their deeply unwise declaration that all previously-funded organisations would be receiving a “significant uplift” had to be hastily withdrawn in the face of anger and dismay from Cumbernauld Theatre at the decision to pull the plug on its long-term support.
It took the best part of a year for that particular wrong to be righted when the theatre announced it had finally secured almost £400,000 of support from the government and Creative Scotland to allow it to remain open, rather than close, in 2026.
Cumbernauld’s successful campaign rounded off a heartening and optimistic period for Scottish culture, which has set the scene for a new year which holds much to be excited and optimistic about.
First Minister John Swinney signed off an additional £20m in government funding for Edinburgh’s first purpose-built concert hall for more than a century to allow work to finally get underway at the New Town gap site.
The reopening of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow after seven years almost immediately felt worth it when its £40m refurbishment and expansion was revealed.
The operators of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh have just put tickets on sale for its reopening season after an ongoing revamp which is expected to cost at least as much by the time it is completed in the summer.
Also due to finally reopen next year is the new-look Paisley Museum after an eight-year closure for a long-delayed refurbishment expected to be cost at least £65m by the overhaul is revealed in the second half of 2026.
With new long-term government funding finally secured for subsidised theatres, it feels as if something of a new stage era is dawning.
Alan Cumming’s first full season of shows since being appointed artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre seems certain to raise its profile to new levels and attract droves of first-time visitors over the next 12 months.
The new era at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh under artistic director James Brining and executive director Lyndsey Jackson will be ramping up with a new musical adaptation of the novel One Day, Jodie Comer’s sold-out run in Suzie Miller’s one-woman play Prime Facie and the return of Broadway and Hollywood star Gayle Rankin to Scotland to lead the cast of a new production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
Dundee Rep’s newly-appointed executive director Kath Mainland should have been starting this year with a spring in her step given its 2026 programme includes the return of hit musical A History of Paper, the launch of a brand new musical featuring specially-written songs by singing star KT Tunstall and the premiere of new National Theatre of Scotland musical The High Life, which will reunite Forbes Masson and Alan Cumming on stage more than 40 years after they first performed together.
Instead, Dundee Rep and most of the other leading cultural organisations in the city are currently facing the prospect of 100 per cent funding cuts.
While their campaigns will go on until final budget decisions are made, arts industry leaders already have their sights set on the Holyrood election campaign and the prospect of the political landscape shifting.
After a rollercoaster few years, when consistent support for culture has felt like an afterthought for politicians, I would be expect all the main parties to face demands to not just sustain but build on the hard-fought-for current levels of support.
