'Crass' ballet dancer advert was a monumental blunder - Tony Earnshaw

First, Fatima doesn’t exist. The dancer is in fact Desire’e Kelley from Atlanta. Second, the poster (“Fatima’s next job could be in cyber. She just doesn’t know it yet”) wasn’t produced by the Government but was instead created by the National Cyber Security Centre to encourage careers in cyber security.

Third, whilst it collides with the viral claim that Rishi Sunak said people in the arts could retrain to find new jobs, he rejected that as a misquote. Nonetheless, the belief that he was talking about the creative industries persisted and took root.

Meanwhile the advert went down in flames. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden backtracked at speed, describing it as “crass”. And the pile-on from significant figures in the arts was both immediate and excoriating.

However the advert was conceived, it was a monumental blunder. Working in the arts is a calling. It’s well known that the vast majority don’t make a lot of money and often work second jobs to get by. That could include the cyber sector. But the clue is the word “second”. If an actor wanted a regular job he or she wouldn’t be an actor.

On a trip to Los Angeles many years ago my wife and I were invited to a party where every other attendee worked in the film industry – or intended to when they got the requisite break. The talk was all about movies. Mrs Earnshaw and I – both journalists – stood out because we weren’t of that ilk.

People gravitate to LA because they want to break into the movies. Every waiter is taking acting classes; every waitress has a script she’s written. That’s been the way since the 1920s.

The same thing applies in the UK. Wannabe actors work in bars to pay their way through drama school. Filmmakers with a vision hustle up the cash to make a low-budget debut.

All are driven less by notions of careerism than by sheer passion: they want to act or direct or write or sing or play the piano… or dance. And if they want to do any of those things they’re invariably prepared to sacrifice a huge amount to achieve their goal. And that doesn’t mean re-training, re-skilling or re-booting their professional lives.

People in the arts make a living in a most precarious profession. By all means have a back-up trade. Robin Williams’s father suggested he train as a welder. It made for a great gag on the stand-up circuit but thankfully that’s all it was: a joke.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson