New Tabu

Over at The Spectator, James MacMillan has an interesting take on the Left; especially as it impacts the arts:

In the Daily Telegraph last year Dominic Cavendish asked, ‘Why do so few of today’s plays challenge the left–liberal consensus? Is there a tacit complicity between many of today’s writers and the liberal establishment? Is the “liberal consensus” and the fear of appearing right-wing hobbling the urge to conduct tough, awkward debates?’ The response from Lisa Goldman, artistic director of the Soho theatre, was telling, and depressing in its simplistic caricature of what ‘right-wing’ means. She asked, ‘What would a right-wing play have to offer? Anti-democracy, misogyny, bigotry, nostalgia of all kinds? Let’s get back to a white Britain? That the slave trade had a civilising influence? That women should stay in the home?’ For her, and many like her, anything that is not left-wing is intrinsically and irredeemably evil. There seems no room in her intellectual and aesthetic view to observe a huge and diverse world of moderate and civilised thinkers who have rejected the extreme narrowness of the modern Left.

I know exactly what he means. For years I've been saying that if theatres really wanted to do something "dangerous" and "disturbing" they'd have to attack the cosy assumptions of the Left, but that's as likely to happen as the BBC commissioning a sympathetic biography of Margaret Thatcher.

One example that I have literally right next to me is a stage adaptation I did of Rudyard Kipling's "The Butterfly That Stamped"; a beautiful story filled with rich language, imagery and romance that brings me close to tears whenever I read it (the story, not my script. I'm not that much of an ego case). I do not, however, ever expect to see it produced in its current state, because one of the major points of the story is that wives do not have carte blanche to browbeat their husbands into a state of utter misery. I could write a play where I contend that American soldiers eat Iraqi babies for breakfast and not raise an eyebrow, but Kipling's call for simple civility would be far too "controversial".