“With £675m of arts funding now earmarked for London 2012, everyone knows this is just the beginning. The great paradox is that it is local theatre – the very community- inspired projects that are supposed to be a legacy of the 2012 games and which helped secure the Olympic bid – that will almost certainly be hardest hit. And it is happening at a time when local theatre, once associated unkindly with summer Shakespeare and panto, has become one of the most potent forces on the UK arts scene.”