1/15/2005|||110579017194553406||||||

SHOCK VALUE

I'm not going to bang the drum on "Jerry Springer - The Opera" much longer (although the debate seems even more topical amidst the row over Prince Charming, alias Harry Windsor).
Two perceptive op-eds today. First up is the Telegraph's Sarah Sands (reg required). In a general piece on the US culture wars, she confesses to changing her mind about the merits of the satire:

"I saw this show both at the Edinburgh Festival and at the National Theatre. It was full of gaiety and exuberance. It was also childish and tasteless, but that did not matter in the theatrical context.
"This changed on television. My daughter watched the beginning, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. I suddenly found the programme terribly bleak. The BBC was wrong to broadcast it and Mark Thompson and Michael Grade were weaselly in its defence. It may pass the narrow test of blasphemy, but it lowers public life."

I think Sands' comment also tells us something how groupthink operates in the arts world. As far I recall, there was hardly a peep of dissent among the culturati when the show first reached the stage. (In future, one of the first laws of arts journalism should be Never trust anyone who says "It's great. I saw it in Edinburgh..." )

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2005/01/shock-value-im-not-going-to-bang-drum.html|||1/15/2005 01:23:00 pm||||||

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