In the wake of Britain's triumph at the Baftas and Grammys, Tom Horan examines what inspires us to be one of the world's most creative nations.

By Tom Horan

What makes Britain such a creative nation? Last weekend's awards ceremonies, the Baftas in London and the Grammys in Los Angeles, brought further confirmation, if it were needed, that when it comes to artistic excellence and innovation our small and often troubled country is a mighty performer.

Whether the work be individual (a best actress Bafta to Kate Winslet, a best newcomer Grammy for young singer Adele), or collaborative (the seven awards for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, the Grammys for Robert Plant's bluegrass project and for the group Coldplay), there is clearly something in the British character that throws up great art, art that the whole world wants and celebrates. So what is it that drives the British creative engine?

One of the reasons the British are great creators is that they're great haters. This is putting it in rather extreme terms, but it is a powerful element of the national psyche to be critical, to have strong opinions. Here, after all, is a country that supports 22 national newspapers. This appetite for criticism can be a negative trait, as seen in the dismissiveness bordering on contempt that the British have for other people's success. It is the classic cri de coeur of the expatriate British star – a Phil Collins in Switzerland, a Michael Caine in Beverly Hills – that they had to move away from Britain because as soon as you are successful here people want to knock you down. It is undoubtedly true that they do. Curiously, the repercussions of this can be extremely healthy.

An acceptance of the status quo can only ever produce more of the same. What we see so often in Britain is a cussed desire to do something different, to do the opposite to what everyone else is doing. Out with the old, in with the new. There is a strong sense throughout the British film and music industries that much of what they do defines itself in opposition to something – in particular, the American mainstream and Hollywood. Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is a great example. Boyle did flirt with Hollywood after the huge success of his Trainspotting in 1996, making movies such as The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, but he has remained in the UK, pursuing projects that he is passionate about, rather than primarily commercial ventures.

Figures such as artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen, who won a Bafta for his debut feature film Hunger, and documentary-maker James Marsh, who won best British film for Man on Wire, seem to thrive on their outsider status. In another example of the British gift for turning a negative into a positive, it seems that the parlous state of the British movie business throws up better filmmakers. It's so difficult to get funding and distribution here that only the most impassioned, the
most committed succeed in turning their idea into a finished work.
It's Darwinian: only the strongest make it to the multiplex. Doggedness may not be an attitude automatically associated with creativity, but it is part of the armoury of the successful British artist.

Somehow, the continuing low status of the creative industries in this country perpetuates this sense of being an underdog. The global popularity of British artistic endeavour is not a new phenomenon: it has made Britain money for decades. Nevertheless, there is still a sense here that working in the arts is "not a proper job". This produces a kind of amateur spirit, a feeling of succeeding against the odds, and that appeals to something deep in the British pysche. Adversity acts as a spur. It's as if it wouldn't be worth the bother making your name in the creative world if it were establishment-endorsed, well organised, a recognised career path.

For decades, British fashion and pop music have embraced this penchant for the perverse. As soon as a type of music or a way of dressing establishes itself as fashionable and then popular, so a new subset of Brits will emerge who are intent on doing the opposite. When the haircut of the day seems to be the No 3 crop, you can bet that in some part of the country a new set of contrarians will be furiously cultivating Afros and matching beards. Thus did punk oust prog rock in the Seventies, and then Britpop see off house music when that, too, became ubiquitous in the mid-Nineties. There's a fantastic rigour to all this, a constant striving for individuality and a thirst for the original.

It is the embracing of daring, of risk, that is a unifying quality of British artists across all disciplines. From the jaw-dropping designs of architects such as Zaha Hadid or Thomas Heatherwick, to the audacious works of Damien Hirst, and Danny Boyle making a mainstream film half in Hindi, achievement in itself is not enough – the badge of honour is always to be innovating.

And surely the setting in which such people work, surrounded by massed ranks of critical countrymen, ever hungry for the new, helps focus the creative mind. Thus, 60-year-old Robert Plant, rich beyond measure from Led Zeppelin sales, eschewed the easy option of the reunion circuit to win five Grammys after making a brilliant bluegrass album with a singer, Alison Krauss, whom few in Britain had heard of.

Of course, there are other, more prosaic reasons behind Britain's high standing in the great league table of creativity. Be you a playwright, a concert pianist or a fashion designer, it will always be in your favour that English has become the language of the world. It helps, too, that alongside the purely creative parts of the arts, there is a parallel world of technical and practical excellence in which imaginative flair can flourish. It was fascinating, if faintly bizarre, to see the film studios of Pinewood and Shepperton being awarded a Bafta.

In a few weeks' time, it will be the Academy Awards and again Britain's creative wares will be judged through the eyes of the outside world. Slumdog may not match its showing at the Baftas, but with 10 nominations it is a strong contender for awards, as is Kate Winslet. In the traditional fashion, there are already many in the UK – in pubs, in the papers, at dinner parties – who are "fed up" with the film, and have "had enough" of Winslet. Already, too, there will be those who have been inspired by Boyle and Winslet, and those who think they're terribly old hat and that they themselves can do better. This is the best and worst of Britain as a creative nation.

What cannot be denied is that time and again, in fields as diverse as painting, theatre, literature and heavy metal, the world responds to the British sensibility. To understand why, perhaps it's better to look at the equation the other way round. What is it that all art tries to do? Why do we create stuff? And is it something that British people are naturally suited to doing?

These are big questions, but around them floats the idea of art as a search for truths about life. The constant questioning to which we subject creativity in this country is mirrored in the constant questioning that informs the works themselves. Although we have our share of the fake and dishonest in Britain, you only have to step outside the country for a short time to find that it is still viewed in many parts of the world as a place synonymous with a kind of integrity, with things done from the heart, with doing it like you mean it.

And perhaps that's why, in our curious mixture of bloodymindedness and open-mindedness, cynicism and utter conviction, we continue to fascinate the world.