It looks as if snow
is only for kids
from private schools
Barney MacFarlane
It’s worse with Corden in it
Let me introduce you
to the internet version
of the pub bore
Quintin Jardine
Catalonia and language
Barney MacFarlane
Andrew Hook was lucky (19 January). If James Corden, the ‘star’ of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, had not been indisposed on the occasion of Andrew Hook’s trip to the Adelphi in London, his experience would have been even more grim.
The production is, as they used to say in Govan, ‘rid rotten’.
Yet, squirming more than somewhat on my Springburnian bottom, I had to note the raucous and genuine laughter of the rest of the audience. Not, I think, as Professor Hook suggests, that the high cost of a ticket prompted the onlookers to be ‘determined to be entertained’.
And I fancy there is a simple reason – one of nationality, and, possibly that old bête noire, class.
Discussing the event later – our party consisted of myself, my partner (Scottish but 25 years in London) and her two young adult sons (half-Hungarian, brought up in London) – we concluded that, despite it being an adaptation of a Goldoni comedy, ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is distinctly English.
My good lady and I tried to attach something in mitigation: the slapstick timing; the performances of one or two other actors. Her sons, however, thoroughly enjoyed it. Their tickets being paid for gave them no axe to grind. (Oh, for an axe…)
The Adelphi show, while originated at the National Theatre, is very much part of the Christmas panto fare which has been a great and traditional source of entertainment to the masses.
It was remarked on BBC4’s excellent ‘Story of the Musicals’ that less than 4% of Britons attend the theatre. That statistic is, I’m sure, questionable, yet if you, as a visiting Scot, added yourself to that number by attending the Adelphi’s blockbuster, it’s quite possible you would never go back.
Corden, who has apparently earned his spurs in television, and earlier in the National’s acclaimed ‘The History Boys’, was, for my partner and me, a big, galumphing ingénu, desperate, it seemed, to ingratiate himself to the audience. Given the applause and laughter that surrounded us, he was triumphant in that.
Yet Les Dawson or Frankie Howerd he was not. Either of the old masters would have made it a happier night to remember.
In the interests of fairness, one wonders what an English visitor would make of the panto offerings at the King’s or the Pavilion in Glasgow. Gallus and shamelessly populist as these shows invariably are, a southern visitor might exit bemused rather than amused. Mind you, Rab C Nesbitt travelled well and Billy Connolly remains a truly international star.
The nub of the problem then must be: what is the nature of humour and in what ways do demographic idiosyncrasies dispose those to laugh at or deprecate the same offering before them? Discuss.
It looks as if snow
is only for kids
from private schools
Graham Connelly
World Snow Day, Tyndrum
Photograph by Islay McLeod
A couple of years ago, a residential child care worker told me that his manager required a written risk assessment form if a child wanted to
ride a bike.
Safety and competence in taking children on adventurous activities was a major concern for my generation of teachers, working in schools in the years following well-publicised tragedies like the 1971 Cairngorms disaster when seven children died in whiteout conditions. We took the trouble to get training and qualifications and followed the local authorities’ rules on the ratio of instructor to pupils and writing a good proposal for trips to be authorised by an appropriate senior manager.
Some activities are so obviously hazardous that they are best left to professional instructors but it is difficult to understand why teachers today seem disinclined to supervise pupils in conditions where parents happily take their own children – for example on marked pistes in ski resorts. The explanation is no doubt complex. One barrier is the ‘risk assessment’ procedure which did not involve complex form-filling in my day. I am told there is no standard approach in Scotland, with the amount of bureaucracy varying considerably between councils.
If true, this is a pity because the model forms provided in the Scottish Government’s guide, ‘Health and Safety on Educational Excursions’, appear moderate and sensible. Some of the difficulty no doubt lies in confusion about the degree to which teachers or social workers are free to exercise judgements about risk. A couple of years ago, a residential child care worker told me that his manager required a written risk assessment form if a child wanted to ride a bike.
Another barrier is the fear of litigation should something go wrong, for example, if a child is injured. Worry about accidents is an understandable reaction for professionals working in childcare and education, and the anxiety produced serves as an appropriate reminder to plan carefully and not take undue risks, but concerns have been greatly exaggerated by myths circulating about health and safety. Children’s commissioner, Tam Baillie, launching the ‘Go Outdoors!’ guidance (2010), aimed principally at those working with ‘looked after’ children (children in care), said: ‘A risk-averse and bureaucratic environment – which leads to "cotton wool" kids – breaches children’s rights and undermines healthy development’.
The Curriculum for Excellence is promoting outdoor learning which I think is a good thing. I am just a little worried that some of the more adventurous activities are less accessible to the broad range of school pupils than they were in the relatively recent past. If there is a World Snow Day next year, I hope more schools will run buses to the ski centres, even if it means I have to spend longer queuing for the lifts.
Graham Connelly is a senior lecturer in the school of applied social sciences at the University of Strathclyde
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