Virtual Methodist

I had one of those incidents this week of remembering something that didn't happen. Don't fear, I haven't developed false memory syndrome, although I am sure we have all experienced a variety of that where an event when we were young has been talked about so vividly that we are convinced that we actually remember it ourselves even though it is unlikely (or perhaps even impossible as we weren't actually there)... No, in this instance I was convinced that I had been to the previous production of the Lyric's "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme" only to find out subsequently that I couldn't possibly have been as I wasn't in the country at the time! However, I know I DID see a production of it (and I don't think it was the Abbey's original production in Dublin) before early 1987. I also know I didn't see it alone, as I was never sad enough to go to the theatre on my own, so if there is anyone out there who accompanied ...

Arrrggggh!!!! I have been reduced to my most incoherent, working class roots by a combination of patronising elitism and thorough-going Philistinism... So much so, here is my second post in a day! A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a colleague who was trying to argue that we should eschew being "too arty" and using poetry in a particular context for fear that it might alienate people from working class (and especially working class protestant) areas... I think we got our disagreement sorted out, but there is definitely a sense there that "the arts" are for the middle and upper classes and not for those in working class estates. Then you have William Humphrey's ill-informed comments on the Lyric and Mac Theatres saying that they offer little "tangible benefit to the people in Ballygomartin, Ballymurphy or Ballymacarrett," and that "The concept of 'the arts' is not something which the Protestant working-class community in this city b...