Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Friday, November 09, 2012

People...

Last night Stu and I went to see Alan Bennett's new play People at the Lyttelton Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

Not quite as gripping as The History Boys or The Habit of Art it tells the story of a run down country house and the dilemma the current lady owner (Frances de la Tour's wonderful Dorothy), her sister and companion have in disposing of it. Death duties, porn films, a shady consortium and the National Trust all are circling.

It's the National Trust though that comes in for must ridicule. It's compared unfavourably to the Anglican Church in it's irrelevance, it's pomposity and it's shameless (and shameful) self-marketing.

They want to turn everything into a visitor attraction says Bennett. There is nothing they won't exploit. And harsh though it may be, Bennett puts these words in their mouth, there is ‘nowhere that is not visitable. That at least the Holocaust has taught us.’ Ouch.
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