The Woman Who Will Save Southbank?

Jude Kelly is artistic director of a surging Southbank in London. “I can think of no one in British theatre who is cast so often as hero and villain as Kelly. She is admired for her insistence that the arts are for all, but vilified for being a symbol of the tick-box funding culture of the past 10 years, which encourages mediocrity rather than creativity. It doesn’t help that she sometimes uses the doublethink artspeak of someone who has spent too many years filling in application forms for grants. But she welcomes the speech made recently by the new culture secretary, James Purnell, that suggested the arts must be valued for themselves.”