Just beyond the end of the High Street in an old school house behind the cricket field there is what many consider a cultural gem. One of the south west’s finest, it offers everything from movies to live comedy, streamed opera to a myriad of live music with famous favourite names sprinkled through the programme. We met with theatre director, playwright and former director of The Pound, Russ Tunney.
Where did it all start?
The building was a school and, when classes moved to a new build down the road, small community organisations – a wind band, am dram, that kind of thing made use of the space and put an artistic stamp on it. The original organisers then secured funding to create a permanent cultural venue for the region. It seemed like the stars aligned and allowed us to turn this building into The Pound, the arts centre you now find here. Every three years we apply for more funding and, while that’s a competitive process, we’ve carried on securing it. That’s allowed us to employ staff and think strategically about audience development and goals around public health and the environment.
What is the strategy?
We have a broad programme across multiple art forms and work hard to ensure there is potentially something for everyone here regardless of age or background. One of the first things I did was to look at what else was on offer within 30 to 60 minutes’ drive of here, and what we could do that was different. I mean we’re never going to compete with the Theatre Royal in Bath for what they do or any of the other bigger and better-funded venues. But we wanted to make a name for ourselves with the quality of experience. We didn’t want to play it safe so we don’t just chase the ‘popular’ high turnover ticket sales acts like tribute bands. We only programme things we think are amazing. We might mix performance poets like John Cooper Clarke with a brilliant current poet like Luke Wright. We might go, for example, for well-known comedians on warm-up tours, but also comedians on the way up – brilliant acts not Channel 4 or the BBC just yet. You have to be brave in putting on new work. We still present classical music (which was fundamental in the early days here), but you can also now find burlesque and illusion and other art forms.
We had a focused and clear priority to provide activity for young families, teens and older people. And to promote wellbeing and good mental health. I mean every performed event has a mental health benefit. That is what the arts does, and we're proud that over 80 per cent of our audience are from the local community, within five miles of here. There are plenty of associated things in the mix. For example, we have three music therapists who run their business out of the building (it started with one, but demand was so high it exploded). We run a festival of mindfulness and wellbeing with the local secondary school, involving workshops and performance and which signposts specialist services. We have ballet lessons and we have Dancing Through Time, a mobility session for older people where the socialising over coffee has proved as important as the movement. We also go out across the county with silent disco equipment, and we're working with a theatre company in Salisbury providing outreach to older people, many socially isolated. I mean they might start suspicious when they come in with their walking aids thinking a disco is not for them, but within ten minutes they're singing and dancing.
Well, there's more diversity in Wiltshire than gets talked about. There's a big travelling community, for example, and the second most spoken language in the county is Nepalese. Wiltshire has an ageing community we want to cater for, but we need to think, too, about what that means for the average 14-year-old. Art is about putting yourself in others’ shoes, and we need to keep doing that. I'm proud that there is no sense of elitism here, and you can't say that for all arts centres. We have very different audience members who might come for the classical music or the midnight burlesque or both. We need to keep breaking down barriers. Take our free meals programme, for example. It has introduced our events to a lot of new families. We have built something that will last here, and as I move on this year I am passing the baton to our new director Ruth Hill. We've worked together during my time here and are excited about the future.
During the pandemic when everything locked down, we had stock in the cafe which would have just gone in the bin, so we offered free meals and saw families turning up who might never have set foot in the building before. When you see a need and you can do something about it you want to make things happen. We had the kitchen here, and we were in the heart of the community. Our message was, just turn up and we'll feed you. No questions asked. Now we provide meals in the school holidays via a Government-recognised scheme. But yes, that was good for our organisation, too. Those families who had never been to The Pound before are regulars at events now.
I get approached by other centres all the time asking about our model of work. But I sometimes think what has evolved here could only have happened in Corsham. We are riding on the energy of the community, listening to them, tapping into their vision for connection and wellbeing. There is something in the civic identity of the place that is unspoken but I feel is built into our DNA. We're very excited about what is going to happen next.
Corsham has long been a centre for the Arts and Creative Industries, and has wonderful historical connections to the famous Bath Academy of Art (which relocated here after WW II) and, of course, the art of Corsham Court.
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