Left Wing Middle Classes in Theatre and the Arts, in 2008. It was the culmination of 25 years of standing in opposition to the received thinking of the whole arts establishment and, as the title implies, the left wing middle classes. The author of any such book is putting himself automatically on the wrong side of anyone with any power of influence in the arts or theatre world, and gives up any hope of being accepted by them. Not that Motton had much to hope for or to lose from those quarters. But this book finished off a battle he had fought against them all along from the very first days at the Royal Court, and he uses all he knows of his adversary to unravel their deceit, as he sees it. It is a bold and a brave book, and cost Motton his publisher and, shortly after, his agent, and left him if possible, more isolated than he had ever been. With the publication of the book, Motton's position as dissident went beyond question, as he was now openly in opposition to the establishment, in the arts, and in politics. In one important chapter Gregory Motton calls into question the Royal Court's picture of itself as a writers' theatre and also its working class credentials. He goes so far as to publish in the book a list of the leading lights of the Court, along with the public schools they went to and the fees they paid. It is both a subtle and a wide ranging book, covering the visual arts with a long and complex chapter about Herbert Read, Arts Council funding, Freud, Althusser , Rousseau, Marx, Look Back in Anger, Violence in the theatre, Sarah Kane, and in a detailed look at the famous Oz trial, hits at the widely held presumptions of the whole of the arts community. The pages are awash with the blood of sacred cows. Oberon books refused to publish the book despite having commissioned it, unless Motton removed the chapter on the Royal Court, which he refused to do. Oberon feared legal action from the Court, but in fact as it turned out, the current artistic director there, Dominic Cooke had no problem with the book, which Motton presented to him, and agreed to put it on sale in the Royal Court's own bookshop! For all its faults , the Court wasn't totally averse to a little bit of criticism. After all, weren't the sons of the Royal Court traditionally supposed to be anti establishment - it was just that it was now the Royal Court itself that was the establishment. One of the main points of Motton's book was to make clear who and what now was the establishment. It was an important book, whose relevance went far beyond the theatre and the arts. No newspaper would review it, especially not the left wings papers. Until Dame Beryl Bainbridge, the darling of the Guardian, offered to write one for the Guardian, who then commissioned her to do it. They were pleased by the idea of having a review penned by the then severely ailing Bainbridge,.... pleased that is, until they read it. Upon reading the very positive review, which seemed to revel in this attack upon left wing complacency, the Guardian went silent. When Bainbridge asked them from her deathbed when they were going to publish it, they finally said they were not going to. They even went so far as to claim that the Dame had not written it. Dame Beryl Bainbridge, herself an occasional outspoken rebel again platitudes, and a bit of a loose cannon, died on 2nd July 2010 and the review became unpublishable. Click here to read that review now , in its entirety. You can see why the Guardian didn't like it. |
| Helping Themsleves - The Left Wing Middle Classes in Theatre and the Arts By Gregory Motton |
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