Class and The Arts
When I first went away to study fine art at Art Collage, the thing that shocked me most—apart from the usual homesickness—was how much people started to mock my very, very broad Barnsley accent. Let’s get this straight: the real thick, pit-village Barnsley accent is almost impenetrable to outsiders. The film Kes, a British classic, uses the local accent and was shot on the edge of Barnsley. All the schoolkids in that film speak with the local accent, and even so, to me, it sounds softened on screen.
However, the version of Kes you’ve likely seen on DVD, streaming platforms, or TV doesn’t fully capture the true Barnsley accent and dialect. There’s a fascinating side-by-side comparison on YouTube showing the original recordings of some scenes alongside the versions released for British audiences. It was refined for UK release!!!! This isn’t the internationally dubbed version with subtitles—it’s the version we British viewers are familiar with. The reality is that the true Barnsley accent, especially when spoken at pace, is nearly incomprehensible. We combine sounds, contract words, and speak quickly, using words like “thee,” “thou,” and “thissen,” alongside many other almost medieval terms.
This impenetrable dialect had a cultural and historical basis. In the mining towns around Barnsley, particularly the smaller villages, people seldom left the area. They grew up, went down the pit, retired, and stayed local. In fact, I once read—possibly in the late 1980s—that Barnsley had the lowest rate of population movement in the UK. Few people moved in, and few moved out. Everyone spoke the same way, not just with the same accent, but with an incredibly thick dialect full of its own words and constructions and so t became even thicker .
Growing up in a very poor mining household wasn’t a bad upbringing. It wasn’t a bad life. But looking back, I can now see just how poor we were. We didn’t leave the county, didn’t fly abroad, and didn’t even travel to the south. My first real trip outside Yorkshire, apart from Blackpool, was on an A-level geography field trip. For 18 years, I barely left the county. We never ate out in restaurants or engaged in socializing like that. Life revolved around the working men’s club and our large family gatherings. All I ever heard was the accent and dialect used around me.
At 18, I went to art college in the Black Country. I was there to study fine art, which, then as now, was very much a middle-class pursuit. Thanks to the welfare state and the grant system, I was able to study what I wanted rather than what would guarantee me a job. My dad dropped me off in our old Ford Cortina, and then he drove home. That was it—I was on my own.
When I looked around, I noticed other students with their own cars. That was something I couldn’t even conceive of—having enough money to buy a car or take driving lessons. I tried to be friendly and talk to people, but within days, people were mocking my accent. My thick Barnsley accent and dialect stood out, and I’ve never forgotten how that felt.
Throughout my working life, I’ve been in universities, colleges, tech companies, games studios, and agencies. After living and working around London for 30 years, I’ve realized something: the arts world is overwhelmingly middle class and deeply biased against the working class. Whether it’s theatre, fine art galleries, or other creative fields, there’s a systemic preference for a particular type of person—a polished, middle-class person with the “right” background.
This bias affects everything. Thousands of working-class artists produce great work, but it rarely gets the same coverage as that of their middle-class counterparts. Why? Because the arts world promotes people like themselves. There’s a disdain for anyone who doesn’t speak or behave in the “right” way.
The problem has worsened with the removal of grants and support for working-class students pursuing the arts. Combined with the commodification of art and the government’s reluctance to fund creative education, it has solidified a middle-class stranglehold on the arts. It’s not just me saying this—actors and other professionals have spoken out about the lack of working-class voices in their fields. See the attached report, https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/article/2024/may/18/arts-workers-uk-working-class-roots-cultural-sector-diversity
“Fewer than one in 10 arts workers in UK have working-class roots
The cultural sector falls short on other measures of diversity too, with 9o% of workers white, says new report”
But it’s not just employees, look at a genre like comedy, it’s a deeply ingrained class division. Shows like The Detectorists and This Country are brilliant, but much of the BBC’s output either reflects middle-class views or focuses on underrepresented ethnic minority voices. While these are important perspectives, it often feels like the working class view is entirely absent because the programmes are largely made by people who have never experienced it. The commissioning process seems to reflect a narrow view of culture: one that either centers middle-class households in places like Fulham or Chiswick, or seeks to address guilt by amplifying minority voices—without room for the working-class experience.
This exclusion isn’t just wrong—it’s wasteful. The arts lose out on untapped talent and diverse perspectives. It’s a waste of social capital and an opportunity to grow and learn as well as build new audiences while promoting inclusion. The same bias plays out across society, where classism and ageism remain some of the last acceptable prejudices.
As someone who’s worked hard, had a career, and applied creativity in everything I’ve done, I can’t help but look back and see the patterns. I grew up in a time when social mobility was possible, supported by the welfare state. But those opportunities have eroded, and now success often seems reserved for those with middle-class privilege.
This has to change. We need to stop excluding people based on class, accent, or background. It’s not just about fairness—it’s about making society richer, more inclusive, and more creative, and about actual valuing other groups other than saying you do because you’ve hired a multicoloured cast.