Kenneth Roy
Could Mr Salmond
be blown away
by his own charisma?
The Cafe
Requiem
Anthony Seaton
Three cheers for
our under-valued
public sector
The Cafe 2
James Robertson
and Tom Morton
Quintin Jardine
The day I left
Oz Blackstone’s wife
dead on the kitchen floor
John Cameron
Cruise ship captains
Andrew Hook
We were told to forget
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
The Cafe 3
Cybernats
Walter Humes
What on earth has
happened to
my dongle?
Islay McLeod
Lust in Balloch
19.01.12
No. 503
The Cafe 3
David Hill’s argument (18 January
While I agree with Kenneth Roy that the high heid yins at Pacific Quay have failed to come up with any sensible explanation for the decision, I strongly suspect that abusive activities by cybernats played the major part. The Herald newspaper closed down its comment facility completely for similar reasons and only recently revived it with all those wishing to post comments having to identify themselves. The BBC should follow that example.
My fellow SR contributor David Torrance has coined the term Cybernattery to describe the activities of this tribe of supporters of the governing party. Many of these Bravehearts roam the internet searching out those of an anti-Scottish persuasion in order to subject them to what are often threats and sometimes vile abuse. Joan McAlpine’s recent outburst merely gives them encouragement. One of the tribe, defending oor Joanie, just this week threatened a proudly Scottish letter writer to the Scotsman who disagreed with her: ‘You and your family will be rounded up and sent to London so you can be extremely Scottish there’.
Statements like this in the online comment facilities of the media are the modern equivalent of the old green ink or poison pen letter. This was Victoria Coren in the Guardian last year on the subject:
‘That’s what the anonymous phone call, online forum abuse or the old-fashioned poison pen letter is: a dog turd in the night. Unpleasant, cowardly and a bit mad…late at night, safely hidden behind the green pen, the false screen name or the 141, he releases everything he daren’t in daylight.’
I’m delighted that Kenneth Roy continues his stand against an online comment facility for SR. It is probably too late to halt the tide of anonymous postings on websites like Newsnet Scotland, but the mainstream media and intellectually worthwhile sites should ban all comment by those who lack the moral courage to identify themselves.
Dick Mungin
We were told to forget
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
Andrew Hook
I am not invariably a fan of Suzanne Moore’s journalism. Perhaps some readers will recall her highly personal spat over shoes and other matters with Germaine Greer in the 1990s. Just the kind of exchange to give the sisterhood a bad name.
However, last week she ended her Guardian column on celebrity shoplifting with this comment on a recent visit to the theatre (in London one has to assume): ‘Not a big deal for some but, as usual, disappointing for me. I can only conclude that there is some mathematical equation between the low standards of theatre critics and audiences and the ridiculous price of the tickets’.
On this subject at least Suzanne and I are in complete agreement. Recently in London, I attended a show that has received universal acclaim from the city’s theatre critics. Every single newspaper from the Times, Telegraph, and Guardian to the Mail, Sun, and Metro has joined in the chorus of unstinted, five-star praise. Originally a National Theatre production, the play soon moved to the Adelphi Theatre in the West End, and that run over, a new move to the Theatre Royal, opening on 2 March, has just been announced. Richard Bean’s ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, a new version of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 play ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ is by any standard a smash-hit.
Given this background, I went along to a matinee in the Adelphi with the highest of expectations. Before proceeding though, I have to admit that a special circumstance attended the performance I was about to see. Even my ticket told me in bold type that James Corden – who has been celebrated as the star of the show – would not be performing that afternoon.
Best known to audiences as the co-writer of, and actor in, the TV series ‘Gavin and Stacey’ – the huge success of which is demonstrated by its move from BBC 3 to BBC 2 to BBC 1 – Corden’s presence has clearly had a lot to do with the play’s popularity. But the packed matinee audience, of which I was part, loved his understudy, Owain Arthur. His performance, including all the comic business, timing and gesture, is surely modelled on that of Corden, and, in fact, his curtain call at the end of the show was greeted with thunderous applause. The role of the ‘servant’ is of course at the comic heart of the play, but even so ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ (and so ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’) is in no sense a one-man show.
The Guardian has told its readers to go along to ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’
and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I
failed to forget mine.
I cannot believe, in other words, that Corden’s presence on stage would have converted what was at best a mildly entertaining afternoon into a sublime theatrical experience. For my money – and Suzanne Moore is right to describe the price of West End theatre tickets as ridiculously high – ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ was a long way short of a five-star show.
The opening 10 minutes were almost embarrassingly bad: woodenly stagey, with not very funny dialogue between not very funny characters. The rest of the first half gained some pace with the entry of the Corden/Arthur servant, but after the interval there was just more of the same: lots of knockabout, farcical, slapstick action. Nothing more. Goldoni’s play can be seen as having a subversive subtext: the clever servant outwitting his socially superior masters. But Bean’s version offered no hint of that.
Suzanne Moore’s comment links the low standards of critics to the low standards of audiences. I think she has a point. The audience that afternoon was determined to be entertained. It wanted to get its (big) money’s worth. It was ready and willing to laugh. Huckleberry Finn really doesn’t know that the drunk man on the circus horse is a ringer; we were happy to pretend to believe that the members of the audience brought up on stage to be made fun of were the real thing. The Guardian has told its readers to go along to ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I failed to forget mine.
A postscript. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Matilda the Musical’, which has also transferred to the West End, is worth every penny. Imaginatively staged, musically exciting, and brilliantly performed – by the children in particular – this is an unforgettable theatrical experience. Roald Dahl’s Matilda – the little girl who loves to read – is worth every word of the praise she received on the Guardian’s editorial page on 12 January.
Andrew Hook is a former professor of English literature at
Glasgow University
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
The Cafe 3
Cybernats
Walter Humes
What on earth has
happened to
my dongle?
Islay McLeod
Lust in Balloch
19.01.12
No. 503
The Cafe 3
David Hill’s argument (18 January
While I agree with Kenneth Roy that the high heid yins at Pacific Quay have failed to come up with any sensible explanation for the decision, I strongly suspect that abusive activities by cybernats played the major part. The Herald newspaper closed down its comment facility completely for similar reasons and only recently revived it with all those wishing to post comments having to identify themselves. The BBC should follow that example.
My fellow SR contributor David Torrance has coined the term Cybernattery to describe the activities of this tribe of supporters of the governing party. Many of these Bravehearts roam the internet searching out those of an anti-Scottish persuasion in order to subject them to what are often threats and sometimes vile abuse. Joan McAlpine’s recent outburst merely gives them encouragement. One of the tribe, defending oor Joanie, just this week threatened a proudly Scottish letter writer to the Scotsman who disagreed with her: ‘You and your family will be rounded up and sent to London so you can be extremely Scottish there’.
Statements like this in the online comment facilities of the media are the modern equivalent of the old green ink or poison pen letter. This was Victoria Coren in the Guardian last year on the subject:
‘That’s what the anonymous phone call, online forum abuse or the old-fashioned poison pen letter is: a dog turd in the night. Unpleasant, cowardly and a bit mad…late at night, safely hidden behind the green pen, the false screen name or the 141, he releases everything he daren’t in daylight.’
I’m delighted that Kenneth Roy continues his stand against an online comment facility for SR. It is probably too late to halt the tide of anonymous postings on websites like Newsnet Scotland, but the mainstream media and intellectually worthwhile sites should ban all comment by those who lack the moral courage to identify themselves.
Dick Mungin
We were told to forget
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
Andrew Hook
I am not invariably a fan of Suzanne Moore’s journalism. Perhaps some readers will recall her highly personal spat over shoes and other matters with Germaine Greer in the 1990s. Just the kind of exchange to give the sisterhood a bad name.
However, last week she ended her Guardian column on celebrity shoplifting with this comment on a recent visit to the theatre (in London one has to assume): ‘Not a big deal for some but, as usual, disappointing for me. I can only conclude that there is some mathematical equation between the low standards of theatre critics and audiences and the ridiculous price of the tickets’.
On this subject at least Suzanne and I are in complete agreement. Recently in London, I attended a show that has received universal acclaim from the city’s theatre critics. Every single newspaper from the Times, Telegraph, and Guardian to the Mail, Sun, and Metro has joined in the chorus of unstinted, five-star praise. Originally a National Theatre production, the play soon moved to the Adelphi Theatre in the West End, and that run over, a new move to the Theatre Royal, opening on 2 March, has just been announced. Richard Bean’s ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, a new version of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 play ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ is by any standard a smash-hit.
Given this background, I went along to a matinee in the Adelphi with the highest of expectations. Before proceeding though, I have to admit that a special circumstance attended the performance I was about to see. Even my ticket told me in bold type that James Corden – who has been celebrated as the star of the show – would not be performing that afternoon.
Best known to audiences as the co-writer of, and actor in, the TV series ‘Gavin and Stacey’ – the huge success of which is demonstrated by its move from BBC 3 to BBC 2 to BBC 1 – Corden’s presence has clearly had a lot to do with the play’s popularity. But the packed matinee audience, of which I was part, loved his understudy, Owain Arthur. His performance, including all the comic business, timing and gesture, is surely modelled on that of Corden, and, in fact, his curtain call at the end of the show was greeted with thunderous applause. The role of the ‘servant’ is of course at the comic heart of the play, but even so ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ (and so ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’) is in no sense a one-man show.
The Guardian has told its readers to go along to ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’
and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I
failed to forget mine.
I cannot believe, in other words, that Corden’s presence on stage would have converted what was at best a mildly entertaining afternoon into a sublime theatrical experience. For my money – and Suzanne Moore is right to describe the price of West End theatre tickets as ridiculously high – ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ was a long way short of a five-star show.
The opening 10 minutes were almost embarrassingly bad: woodenly stagey, with not very funny dialogue between not very funny characters. The rest of the first half gained some pace with the entry of the Corden/Arthur servant, but after the interval there was just more of the same: lots of knockabout, farcical, slapstick action. Nothing more. Goldoni’s play can be seen as having a subversive subtext: the clever servant outwitting his socially superior masters. But Bean’s version offered no hint of that.
Suzanne Moore’s comment links the low standards of critics to the low standards of audiences. I think she has a point. The audience that afternoon was determined to be entertained. It wanted to get its (big) money’s worth. It was ready and willing to laugh. Huckleberry Finn really doesn’t know that the drunk man on the circus horse is a ringer; we were happy to pretend to believe that the members of the audience brought up on stage to be made fun of were the real thing. The Guardian has told its readers to go along to ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I failed to forget mine.
A postscript. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Matilda the Musical’, which has also transferred to the West End, is worth every penny. Imaginatively staged, musically exciting, and brilliantly performed – by the children in particular – this is an unforgettable theatrical experience. Roald Dahl’s Matilda – the little girl who loves to read – is worth every word of the praise she received on the Guardian’s editorial page on 12 January.
Andrew Hook is a former professor of English literature at
Glasgow University
19.01.12
No. 503
The Cafe 3While I agree with Kenneth Roy that the high heid yins at Pacific Quay have failed to come up with any sensible explanation for the decision, I strongly suspect that abusive activities by cybernats played the major part. The Herald newspaper closed down its comment facility completely for similar reasons and only recently revived it with all those wishing to post comments having to identify themselves. The BBC should follow that example.
My fellow SR contributor David Torrance has coined the term Cybernattery to describe the activities of this tribe of supporters of the governing party. Many of these Bravehearts roam the internet searching out those of an anti-Scottish persuasion in order to subject them to what are often threats and sometimes vile abuse. Joan McAlpine’s recent outburst merely gives them encouragement. One of the tribe, defending oor Joanie, just this week threatened a proudly Scottish letter writer to the Scotsman who disagreed with her: ‘You and your family will be rounded up and sent to London so you can be extremely Scottish there’.
Statements like this in the online comment facilities of the media are the modern equivalent of the old green ink or poison pen letter. This was Victoria Coren in the Guardian last year on the subject:
‘That’s what the anonymous phone call, online forum abuse or the old-fashioned poison pen letter is: a dog turd in the night. Unpleasant, cowardly and a bit mad…late at night, safely hidden behind the green pen, the false screen name or the 141, he releases everything he daren’t in daylight.’
I’m delighted that Kenneth Roy continues his stand against an online comment facility for SR. It is probably too late to halt the tide of anonymous postings on websites like Newsnet Scotland, but the mainstream media and intellectually worthwhile sites should ban all comment by those who lack the moral courage to identify themselves.
However, last week she ended her Guardian column on celebrity shoplifting with this comment on a recent visit to the theatre (in London one has to assume): ‘Not a big deal for some but, as usual, disappointing for me. I can only conclude that there is some mathematical equation between the low standards of theatre critics and audiences and the ridiculous price of the tickets’.
On this subject at least Suzanne and I are in complete agreement. Recently in London, I attended a show that has received universal acclaim from the city’s theatre critics. Every single newspaper from the Times, Telegraph, and Guardian to the Mail, Sun, and Metro has joined in the chorus of unstinted, five-star praise. Originally a National Theatre production, the play soon moved to the Adelphi Theatre in the West End, and that run over, a new move to the Theatre Royal, opening on 2 March, has just been announced. Richard Bean’s ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, a new version of Carlo Goldoni’s 1743 play ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ is by any standard a smash-hit.
Given this background, I went along to a matinee in the Adelphi with the highest of expectations. Before proceeding though, I have to admit that a special circumstance attended the performance I was about to see. Even my ticket told me in bold type that James Corden – who has been celebrated as the star of the show – would not be performing that afternoon.
Best known to audiences as the co-writer of, and actor in, the TV series ‘Gavin and Stacey’ – the huge success of which is demonstrated by its move from BBC 3 to BBC 2 to BBC 1 – Corden’s presence has clearly had a lot to do with the play’s popularity. But the packed matinee audience, of which I was part, loved his understudy, Owain Arthur. His performance, including all the comic business, timing and gesture, is surely modelled on that of Corden, and, in fact, his curtain call at the end of the show was greeted with thunderous applause. The role of the ‘servant’ is of course at the comic heart of the play, but even so ‘A Servant of Two Masters’ (and so ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’) is in no sense a one-man show.
and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I
failed to forget mine.
The opening 10 minutes were almost embarrassingly bad: woodenly stagey, with not very funny dialogue between not very funny characters. The rest of the first half gained some pace with the entry of the Corden/Arthur servant, but after the interval there was just more of the same: lots of knockabout, farcical, slapstick action. Nothing more. Goldoni’s play can be seen as having a subversive subtext: the clever servant outwitting his socially superior masters. But Bean’s version offered no hint of that.
Suzanne Moore’s comment links the low standards of critics to the low standards of audiences. I think she has a point. The audience that afternoon was determined to be entertained. It wanted to get its (big) money’s worth. It was ready and willing to laugh. Huckleberry Finn really doesn’t know that the drunk man on the circus horse is a ringer; we were happy to pretend to believe that the members of the audience brought up on stage to be made fun of were the real thing. The Guardian has told its readers to go along to ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ and ‘forget your cares at the funniest show in town’. As you can tell, I failed to forget mine.
A postscript. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Matilda the Musical’, which has also transferred to the West End, is worth every penny. Imaginatively staged, musically exciting, and brilliantly performed – by the children in particular – this is an unforgettable theatrical experience. Roald Dahl’s Matilda – the little girl who loves to read – is worth every word of the praise she received on the Guardian’s editorial page on 12 January.
Glasgow University
