Future Arts Blog

Recently staff and vol­un­teers at Future Arts marked the fes­tive time of year by erect­ing a Christ­mas tree in the office. I doubt that any of us will be here Christ­mas Day but let’s just pre­tend that we are, and under­neath that Christ­mas tree is a present con­tain­ing the start of our dream career. For any­one, that would be one of the best Christ­mas gifts they could get this year. The unem­ployed would just like to start a career this Christ­mas and I can’t think of any bet­ter way to do it than for the big employ­ers in this coun­try to have a jobs giveaway.

Just imag­ine the relief that job­seek­ers up and down the coun­try will feel by not hav­ing to go through another year of fruit­less job­search that’s akin to find­ing straight cor­ners in a cir­cu­lar room. They’d be no more soul– destroy­ing fort­nightly trips to the job­cen­tre where your dig­nity is sav­aged by admit­ting defeat to a sym­pa­thetic advi­sor. All those hours of non-productivity would be replaced by pro­duc­tiv­ity in a work­place where you get paid a decent wage for doing a decent week of work 

I’ll ask my local MP to for­ward on this idea to Chris Grayling, and who knows, it might just become a real­ity. Jobs under­neath the Christ­mas tree: it might not hap­pen this year, but maybe the next. How­ever know­ing my luck it’ll prob­a­bly just be ‘job oppor­tu­nity’ print-outs from the Job Points in the job­cen­tre rather than an actual job to go to. In my expe­ri­ence most of the job oppor­tu­nity print­outs could eas­ily replace the jokes that you get in Christ­mas crack­ers because they’re unfunny and get chucked away just as fast. Cer­tainly none of them are worth destroy­ing a tree over. 

The present I would like to find under the Christ­mas tree come the 25^th Decem­ber would be an oppor­tu­nity to work at BBC Three. I feel that as an organ­i­sa­tion BBC Three would be ideal because it gives room to new tal­ent like me to play, invent and exper­i­ment with my ideas. Instead of enter­tain­ing myself on the dole I would be enter­tain­ing the nation with my unique sense of humour. A sense of humour that has been lost at times due to the hard­ships that long-term unem­ploy­ment brings. 

More than any­thing I want to share my danc­ing with the nation, and they would be no bet­ter way to do that than to dance in a new sit­com. My danc­ing has enter­tained on var­i­ous plat­forms through­out the years and it’s about time I got my chance in front of a national audi­ence on the right plat­form. If I went on strictly come danc­ing then Craig Revel Hor­wood would absolutely demol­ish me, and right­fully so, because my dance moves aren’t made for that kind of show. How­ever from the dance floors of Leeds to BBC radio stu­dios with Alan Raw to the videos on YouTube, I have enter­tained a lot of peo­ple and it’s they who’ll switch on a new sit­com to watch what I do best.

Finally I just hope that mine and every­one else’s wishes come true this Christmas!

Damo