‘Terrifying’ cuts are killing creativity in UK arts, warns multiple Oscar winner

Sandy Powell, who will be made a Bafta fellow this month, fears that a cash-starved fringe scene is stifling artistic risks

The multi-Oscar-winning English costume designer Sandy Powell, who will make film history this month when she accepts a prestigious Bafta fellowship, is terrified" by the lack of experimental live performance being staged in Britain, she says.

Powell is one of film's most garlanded talents, working regularly with Martin Scorsese, but she now fears that the connection between a thriving alternative theatre scene and the commercial world of mass entertainment has been cut.