Was it wise to give the BNP the "Oxygen of Publicity"?

Of course not, but it was a no-win situation for the BBC in some ways - except their ratings.

I'd never heard of the National Front (as they were once called) because they were originally banned from the British media; such a suffocation was highly successful and put them in their rightful place. In their "new" form as the British National Party, they have risen to the heights of two MEP's, which was the basis for the BBC's justification in inviting leader Nick Griffin onto tonight's Question Time; broadcast from Shepherd's Bush in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham - an "ethnic borough" composed of blacks and Indians in the words of the egregious Mr. Griffin.

Unfortunately, he has a point when he says it was something of a lynch mob, and David Dimbleby's behaviour - as the sixth panelist in effect - did not help matters, and distracted from the more important issue of immigration into this country, and what an increasing amount of xenophobia there still is around.

Such an exhibition of protest against a clearly fascist organisation on the programme was heartfelt and unanimous, but the very fact that this subject is being discussed on the airwaves and the Internet like this is helping BNP subscriptions enormously. They want Nick Griffin to be seen as a victim - but battles for democracy and truth always have always had victims of some kind. This is one victim for which there should be no pity.

Going to the Depot

If we are to believe The Sun newspaper to be any sort of political swingometer, then I suppose it would seem that Gordon Brown is pretty well bound for the depot now, which is just where I was last night together with a few dozen other lucky and bewildered souls in the Mercury Theatre Company's 10th anniversary production.

In a typically audacious move, the company have moved outside the confines of the regular theatre and staged an art installation-cum-theatrical presentation of certain events in Colchester's history, turning the old Magdalen Street bus (and tram) depot into a mini-asylum, with audience "inmates" incorporated into the performance area in prison-like jackets and caps (mine was hopelessly small), just a breathing distance from the actors themselves - it's perhaps the one time I'll ever actually work "with" the Mercury Theatre, such was the level of audience and cast integration in the round.

The plot as such is a series of often stylised vignettes (with one recurring sub-plot about a missing child in red, reminiscent of Schindler's List and Don't Look Now), but beautifully lit and boldly staged, even though the acoustics are necessarily bad and the references to Colchester's history are often obscure. A booklet issued at the end - not the beginning - of the show only partly tries to explain things.

Some have found it brilliant, others deeply pretentious. I found it just a little obscure, but with vivid moments (such as being ushered through an area re-creating Severalls Mental Home with one of the characters being given EST), and it's perhaps also the first time when I've walked out of a play onto the streets with the effect of stepping from one frying pan into another.

We see September 11th everywhere

The morning of September the 10th, 2009: whilst sitting in the office, casually chewing on a pack of Munchies, as I tear back the wrapper during the course of the morning, the pattern it was developing seemed to resemble that of the smoke billowing from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Read into it what you will (as I did at the time), but it seemed a spooky piece of symbolism.

Come Back Round the Horne

A pleasant weekend with a friend of mine over from Worcestershire Robert ("Bob") Cole, who came along to check out Colchester once again, and to see Round the Horne at the Mercury Theatre, in a touring production performing two radio broadcasts of the original classic radio series, notable for certain outre elements such as the two gay (in both the old and new sense of the word) characters Julian and Sandy, played of course in the original by such icons as Kenneth Horne, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and of course, Kenneth Williams. The actors given the unenviable task of emulating their 1950's counterparts I thought were very good vocal and facial imitations of the originals, in particular Robin Sebastian as Williams bringing out not only the great man's range of bizarre and wonderful characters but also his sharp sense of improvised repartee with the audience.

I found it not terribly dissimilar to recent radio broadcasts in the theatre that I've attended (such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue), and a pleasant evocation of the era in which it was broadcast, complete with lyrical and entertaining musical interludes from 'Not The Fraser Hayes Four'.

A slightly more peculiar slice of comedy nostalgia was to be found in a rare DVD collection of Come Back Mrs. Noah, a sci-fi comedy written by Jeremy Lloyd and David set in a satirical 2050 drawing upon 1970's influences such as Nationwide (aka. "Farandwide" presented by Gorden Kaye) and the British trade surplus, etc.

Unusually for Lloyd and Croft, CBMN is not a situation comedy as such but an ongoing story in 6 chapters. I watched the series in baited anticipation of whether Mrs N. would ever get back home to Earth - sadly, the resolution is not a satisfying one. A pity in a way, because with the range of characters and actors on display, there was something to be made from their interaction, especially as they are all pleasantly older and less "sexy" than they certainly would be today if - perish the thought - the series were ever remade (British class distinction is also quickly established even in outer space between officers and underlings), rather than focusing all the time on silly props and even sillier jokes that usually involve Mollie Sugden in uncomfortable positions.

The fifth episode ("The Housing Problem") is quite promising and for me the most enjoyable, where the members of Britannia 7 try to rehabilitate themselves with a simulated version of life back on Earth by inviting each other to tea, with mechanised butler and maid robots (played by Christopher Mitchell and Vicki Michelle), and underlining the fact that good science fiction is not really about faraway worlds, but in essence a window and a reflection on our own.

In all truth, this is a series that would normally have never got past the pilot episode - but with all its credentials, the BBC gave it the green light probably as an act of blind faith. Like The Goodies and many other 70's comedy, it remains a show locked in its own time.

70 Years On

I woke this morning, September 3rd 2009, rather earlier than hoped, to a violently windy atmosphere outside. September 3rd 1939 was also apparently a rather stormy night across Britain, the evening that Neville Chamberlain made his fateful speech. For Poland, it was already two days into a nightmare that lasted not just for the next six years but also through six decades.

In a sense, the Second World War was the Fifty Years war, inasmuch as its repercussions were to have a lasting effect until 1989, when Stalin's occupation of East Berlin (as reprisal for Hitler's invasion of Russia) came to an end with the breaking of the Berlin Wall, and all the subsequent oppressions of Communism and the Eastern Bloc.

Many wars have come and gone (and some are still very much ongoing), but across the globe we learnt most of our lessons the hard way from World War II. Please God, we may never have to learn them so grimly again.

"The only guarantor of independence [in journalism] is profit."

I am so repulsed by this statement by James Murdoch (following in his father's footsteps in gunning for the "state-sponsored" BBC), but couldn't think of a way to riposte, until now.

All I can say is, if the BBC is so "sinister" and state-funded, how come his sniping lecture has received such excellent coverage on the BBC? Would he have received anything like as much coverage on the News International channels, had he been a jealous BBC executive talking about Sky News?

Shamefully, many of the newspapers (even the non-Murdoch owned ones) have also rubbed their hands in anticipation at this speech, all jealous of the BBC's online news service that is funded through the license fee - which I fear will become obsolete in the years to come.

The day we lose good news through market forces, is the day we begin to lose our freedom.

Ashes to Ashes

20 years ago in 1989, I lay upstairs in bed asleep whilst Australia regained the Ashes, winning the Fourth Test at Old Trafford. The reason for my convalescence that afternoon was that I was working for British Telecom at the time, on the night shift for their communications computer department (as part of a work placement at college that summer).

20 years later, on another warm August afternoon, I lay on that same bed, as it seemed to be the only sensible place to be, having sat in the sun for the last four days at another cricket match (between Essex and Surrey at Castle Park). What with all that was going on at The Oval in the Fifth Test, to have walked away from the radio this afternoon would have been hazardous, especially if I'd missed anything.

So I lay there, whilst Strauss, Broad, Swann, Flintoff and Co. finally saw off the battling Australians to win the Ashes in a highly charged atmosphere. A small note might be made here, amongst the euphoria of English victory, for the very well behaved Australian contingent of fans throughout the summer - four years ago in 2005 the Aussies thought to bring over their own answer to England's "Barmy Army" which was raucous and just a little annoying - this year however their band of travelling faithful were very well behaved, appreciative and supportive of their team, and a credit to their country. I'm only sorry for them that they came all this way to end in defeat.

But going back to that day in August 1989 brought back some poignant memories (see also Batman blog), and overlooking other Ashes series wins since then, such as the miracle of 2005, this Sunday afternoon was a conclusive case of what goes around also comes around.


"When we were bad we were very very bad, when we were good we were good enough."
- Andrew Strauss, England captain.