The House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee has decided that it doesn’t like Unboxed – originally seen as a festival of Brexit – which kicked off without much attention this month. Its report on the government’s handling of major cultural and sporting events concludes that the aims of the year-long, countrywide celebration of British creativity have been “vague and ripe for misinterpretation” from the first; thus, the £120m investment was, it said, “an irresponsible use of public money”.
Unboxed is a series of 10 art, science and technology projects with ambitious (if at times amorphous) aims such as sending music to the moon and back, transporting a North Sea oil rig to the beach at Weston-super-Mare and turning it into a multimedia centre, and asking people in Wales to imagine what life might be like in 2052. These are all no doubt admirable, inclusive and challenging, but it is fair to say that they are somewhat removed from the Festival of Britain-type idea that Theresa May announced at the Conservative party conference in 2018 and which Brexit backers imagined would involve flag-waving, bangers and mash, and replays of speeches by Churchill. You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the way their assumptions have been upended.
