Essentially, many of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s decisions here are sensible. 70 per cent of the funding has gone to organisations outside London, and combine both artistic excellence (Birmingham Rep, Manchester Royal Exchange) and the sort of venues that snide London-based arts editors like me rarely talk about (Birmingham Hippodrome and the ACC Liverpool Music Group). Most intriguing is the Mayflower Theatre Trust’s award of £3million. There is no doubt that this grant can go some way to supporting the infrastructure of a less wealthy city like Southampton and, who knows, possibly even help reopen the City’s Nuffield Theatres (one of the first victims of Covid, going into administration in May).

Inside the capital, some of the more generous handouts are rather harder to fathom. £3million for The Design Museum feels to me like a big reward for a place which to my mind has no permanent collection of any significance or indeed even a decent cafe. Similarly, Shakespeare’s Globe (awarded £2,985,707) has hardly been fleet of foot when it comes to survival. Bearing in mind that they are one of the few theatres in Britain with a big outdoor space, they could have made hay in the now seemingly halcyon days of July and August. Instead, they have waited until next month to unveil a series of socially distanced screenings.

A far worthier winner is the Old Vic (it’s worth noting that 17 out of 35 of the organisations awarded are theatres, an indication of how dire the predicament of this particular sector of the arts really is) which has shown resilience and innovation over the past few months with a string of well-received productions. Their £3million feels like an endorsement for a venue which has struggled to free itself from the shackles of the allegations of sexual harassment and assault against its former artistic director, actor Kevin Spacey. With no local authority funding or money from Arts Council England, the future could have been grim, but here, thankfully, they have been given a lifeline.

But as well as the matter of who deserves what, whether the money is going to the right places, I can’t help but feel that wider questions need to be asked. Is this money, for a lot of organisations, simply papering over the cracks? Thanks to furlough schemes, grants and various other measures, the storm has been weathered and things in the short term are looking a little brighter. But what about the mid-term? Unless we see a complete return to normality (not least with social distancing at an end), we could witness many places falling off a cliff in the next financial year.