Birkbeck, University of London, ran an event on Patronage and the Theatre on the afternoon of 16 May 2013 ​to discuss issues around subsidy, patronage and many other kinds of support for the theatre. The aim was to broaden the discourse from merely worries about funding in a world of austerity. In fact, despite excellent presentations on the wonderful madness of commercial theatre's economics (headline: it's not commercial) and the need for patrons to protect you from prison in Jacobean England, the conversation inevitably drifted back to subsidy. This was in part because the two last speakers, me and Michael McKinnie, spoke about austerity economics...

I was asked by the indefatigably wonderful Aoife Monks to speak on a panel about 'advocacy'. It turned out, because of illness, that I was​ the panel on advocacy. And this is what I said.