Free to Fight, but Nothing More...

Somewhere, between the constant Trump baiting that is on my Facebook feed, Freedom of Speech is becoming an issue. I am glad. I don't fully understand its implications or boundaries, but I have a vague intuition that I am in favour of it.

Many of the complaints about the erosion of Freedom of Speech come from anti-feminists, which make me suspicious. Bloggers and YouTube vloggers frequently take the latest apparent attack on Freedom of Speech, and shout at it. Here is Sargon of Akkad having a go.

Regardless of Sargon's arguments against political correctness, his tone and attitude are a problem. His aggression, his assumptions against the woman he challenges - even the format that apes a conversation but fails to allow any answer to his objections - are all rhetorical tropes to discredit his opponent without engaging with a meaningful dialectical process (that is, a two-way discussion aiming towards an understanding of both sides, and then moving forward).

It could be that the infrastructure of the internet, or cultural bias towards individual expression of idea, or a mutual suspicion on both sides of the debate, militate against the warm, fuzzy chats that meaningful dialectics requires. The impression is one of two sides shouting at each other over a big fence.

In order to conform to the BBC's ideal of fairness, I shall now present a video from a feminist.

The tension being set up in this set of arguments is between the freedom to say anything you like, and the corresponding responsibility not to be offensive. This is caricatured by one side as 'political correctness gone mad', while the other side attempts to define words as either offensive or acceptable.

The idea of 'freedom of listening' doesn't come up too often.

My impression is that this isn't really about freedom of speech, but two competing ideologies having a turf-war. Do I have to pick sides? 

It probably isn't that simple, is it?

So, when I first starting slapping political commentary up on the blog, I thought that it made sense. I worried that, as a theatre critic, I had much to say about the politics of theatre but little about the politics that happen beyond the stage. Besides, politics is a form of theatre, right? It's another constructed performance, it's all aesthetic and your aesthetics are your ethics et c.

Lately, I just feel like another idiot scampering after the latest controversy. Sure, I have plenty to say about Germaine Greer and transphobia and the arrest of Bahar Mustafa (guess what? I support the freedom of speech of both women, even if I don't agree with them). 

With a cheeky internet search, I can find plenty of evidence that Universities have gone kill-crazy on censorship, or twitter triumphalism or discussions about privilege . Like I am sick of explaining the difference between dramaturgy and the dramaturg, I'm sick of stating my consistent position.

I support the right of people to express ideas that I do not accept, or

find offensive. 

This is mainly because I can remember a time when 'offensive ideas' included discussion of equality for LGBTQI people. 

Of course, there are caveats to this freedom of speech flag-waving: certain material is best not shown to children, trigger warnings are a good idea, when someone is offensive, then a reply is important. And yeah, I guess striking at someone's ability to earn money is a good way of encouraging them to consider their words carefully.

I even support women only spaces - if you want a male only space, there are plenty already (or stay in your fucking bedroom. That's what I do). 

But, like a good Marxist, I believe in dialectic - conversation - the possibility that words can change minds and hearts. 

And appealing to a superior power to silence the opposition is a surrender of personal power. It might look as if twitter activists have forced the boycott of that particular speaker, but it is the existing authorities that made the decision. 

Jonathan Mills does not understand freedom of speech

I am very glad that Jonathan Mills is not the director of the Edinburgh International Festival. It's not his programming - the EIF will always be hit and miss, that's the nature of its scale - nor his fashion choices. Even his defensive attitude about his comment on the Referendum is fair enough. I just found him... odd.

It's something critics rarely mention, but when I interview somebody famous/cool/talented, it is a relief and a pleasure when they turn out to be interesting and interested. Recently, I was on the phone to that Philip Ridley, playwright, visual artist, film-maker and a man who has every right to dismiss me as the guttersnipe I am. But he was charming, well up for a chat, and generously let me grill him on dramaturgy way past the time needed for the 250 word article I intended to write.

Mills was the opposite. I'd meet him at social functions and, if we spoke, he'd always give me an extract from the speech he was about to give to the room. He came across as mechanical, ill at ease with conversation. My last memory of him was at the farewell party for him at the EIF. I spotted him in the corner, alone, looking like a sixth-former who had gate-crashed the party and was wishing he could talk to the older girls...

But there he was, on the panel at Walking the Tightrope. Every time he got the microphone, he lectured. He wasn't actually too bad, and was clear on his position. Those people, he said, who had disrupted Batsheva Dance... well, they liked to protest. But did they like to support? Were they there when, in 2008, he programmed a Palestinian company? 

Well, that's one objection to the boycotting of Israeli academics and artists. Mine is more simplistic: I believe a boycott is counter-productive. Being an anarchist, and to be consistent, I would have to boycott any artist who took money from the state, since the nation state is a nineteenth century fiction, a formalisation of feudal property rights into a capitalist commodity. 

Starting from October, I would also have to boycott myself for accepting funding from the UK state, which I believe is far too involved in the propagation of arms trading. 

Any road, at the end of the panel discussion, an old lady pipes up. She was one of the anti-Israeli protesters. She explained that she had been abused on the picket line. She added that she thought the behaviour of the Israeli state was so bad that it was more important to protest it than allow theatre performances to go ahead.

I don't agree, but I understand. If you believe that by stopping a hip hop opera in Edinburgh you can protect children in Gaza, and you fail to act on that, you are a moral idiot. I do not believe it works like that, but I am open to the idea that stopping genocide is more important than choreography.

But Mills asked her whether she had been there supporting the arts in 2008. She didn't know, and so Mills, with support from playwright Tim Fountain, mocked her for being a protester and not a supporter.


To be clear, two white men with microphones shouted down an elderly lady. They did not respect her position. They did not engage her in a dialogue. They used the power of the PA to drown her out.

That's not freedom of speech, Jonathan. It's bullying. There are no winners in the battle for freedom of expression. It doesn't work like that. 

Strangely enough, Mills begun his chat by saying that he'd enjoyed the plays in Walking the Tightrope (and they are great fun) because they used humour.

I'm glad he thinks that, because I have been laughing at him for years. 

Socialism and Freedom of Speech

Over on International Socialism, Mark Brown makes a comprehensive attempt to address the tensions beneath the Je Suis Charlie campaign. Coming from a determinedly socialist perspective, Brown recognises the horror of the shootings, but finds the subsequent protests problematic.

He is very clear that there is no place for supporting the actions of the men who killed the French cartoonists, yet he is reluctant to follow the popular narrative that condemned them. Seeing an Islamophobia in both the cartoons that led to the murders and the subsequent protests, Brown carefully draws a line between the honest responses (held by the many people who came out to claim Je Suis Charlie in solidarity with the cartoonists) and the manipulation of this popular movement by establishment powers.

The article is a challenge to simplistic interpretations of the events. A dualism was quickly set up, between 'Western Values' – including freedom of speech – and 'Extremist Islam'. The attack, described as an assault not on a specific magazine but on the concept of free speech, became a focus for anti-Muslim sentiment, and reinforced France's secular antagonism to religious activity.

The emphasis on a socialist response – he is hard on leftists who embrace the establisment line – lends the article a distinctive perspective. There are references to familiar socialist themes (Israel's behaviour, the French Revolution), but the argument is located within a historical context, and spots a worrying continuity in French attitudes to minorities from 1789 onward.

Freedom of speech, he argues, is not simply the right to say anything. By referencing Norman Finklestein, Brown suggests a comparison between the offending cartoons and Nazi propaganda against Jews. With plenty of caveats – including a rejection of the notion that Islam in 2015 is in the same position as Judaism in 1935 – Brown wonders whether cartoons that mock a minority group are less satirical than bullying.

His argument is not that the murders ought to be condoned, but that Charlie Hebdo's history of Islamophobic cartoons is not a bright beacon of freedom, but an expression of French secular prejudice against Islam that also deserves critique. He presents Chris Morris as an example of a satirist who has mocked power, and upset the establishment. This, Brown says, is a more bracing and even socialist use of humour.

The publication of the cartoons is characterised not as freedom of expression, but an expression of a dominant ideology. The ease with which European governments sided with the artists, and the media's representation of the crime, added to this dominant ideology, co-opting both popular revulsion and the ideal of freedom within the democratic, capitalist structure.

Freedom of speech, in the case of Charlie Hebdo, was not upheld by the pronouncements of heads of states, or the French government's decision to financially support the magazine's subsequent issue. Rather, they incorporated the idea of freedom into its own agenda, which Brown suggests is the maintenance of a dualistic vision, of an open 'us' and a tyrannical 'them'.

While this argument does not remove the right of cartoonists to be offensive, or offer sympathy to murderous rampages, it does encourage a complex view of how 'freedom of speech' can be used to remove freedom of speech: all right thinking people were Je Suis Charlie, and any protest against the conduct of the state (which included people being arrested in France for, funnily enough, making anti-Charlie cartoons) was heretical.

At one point, Brown dismisses the comparisons between Hebdo and the British Private Eye. And it is noticeable that when Private Eye responded to the murders, they kept a balance between outrage and respect for victims and Islam alike, with a series of cartoons that revealed (mostly) a more sophisticated grasp of the medium than Hebdo's often crude caricatures. If Charlie Hebdo provoked a mass enthusiasm for freedom of speech, it is articles like Mark Brown's Socialism, Satire and Charlie Hebdo that are reminders of the need for vigilance.

Don't ban the BBC...

That might be me for Freedom of Speech. I won't stop believing in  it, but I might shut up about it for a bit. I've said my piece. I had a word. But then I watched this beauty.

It starts off well enough, promising to 'discuss' the problems of the BBC, of which there are clearly many, from excessive expenses, through unbalanced programming, Strictly Come Dancing, to paedophile cover-ups. However, after a montage of familiar public intellectuals, including Terry Christian, Noel Edmunds and George Galloway, the talking heads degenerate into what appears to be a couple of taxi-drivers driven to the edge of a nervous breakdown by requests to pay a license fee.

This isn't a cheap jibe at taxi-drivers. One bloke is filmed sitting in his car, shouting. Banning the BBC is variously an attempt to silence the corporation because 'it is sucking the cock of the establishment', has 'nasty adverts... about the man coming round' to collect the license fee, 'they are all champagne charlies' and is a 'war propaganda outlet'. In the final moments, one anguished man warns that they are 'noncing the children'. 

None of these issues necessitate banning the BBC: they do demand reform. But while I respect the right of the individuals to complain against the BBC, I question their strategy. In fact, I'm wondering whether this is actually a pro-BBC video. None of the people who give it laldy are named, or seem to have any particular authority on the subject. It reminds me of Chris Morris.

When I say authority, I don't mean social status. I mean either a reasoned argument or evidence of their knowledge.

The one question that it fails to ask, however, is that old classic: cui bono? Who gains by the BBC's banning? Could it be Rupert Murdoch, who has an interest in commercial television? Could it be politicians who are hiding their coke'n'breasts activities? 

So, go Freedom of Speech... just back it up with something that isn't bellowing.

I don't have a television, though.

Freedom of Speech: Tony Benn ain't all that.

As far as I like any politician (and I don't), Tony Benn is okay. After his death, he has become the ghostly conscience of the left - whenever that Jeremy Corbyn is given props, he gets compared to either Michael Foot or the Benster.

However, Benn is still a politician. Something I love about him was his frank approach to power. His famous 'five questions' are text book examples of 'speaking truth to power'.

An absolutely admirable challenge to dictators, members of the British Parliament, that bloke who won't book my band in his pub. Benn's intentions are beautiful.

Now, let's see how he gets on putting his ideals into practice... the application of theory to action is called praxis, I believe.

Of course, I am being unfair: Benn wasn't meeting with Saddam to discuss power. He was trying to set up a dialogue with the Iraqi big man in an attempt to prevent Gulf War II.

But there is a huge FAIL here. I am a pacifist, but missing the chance to call a dictator to account, letting him claim that he is concerned with his people's Human Rights... come on Tony!

This is why I like Jesus better than Tony Benn. If we leave aside the question of whether Jesus was fictional, or CS Lewis' assertion that Jesus was either delusional or really The Son of God, Jesus didn't just talk about what we ought to do - he annoyed the hell out of people, gave local capitalists a proper slap for taking the piss out of The Temple before getting executed by the state.

Benn's radical politics, however, are contained within a very safe context - British democracy. I know there's problems with it, but a degree of protest is acceptable, especially if you are an elected politician who wears a suit and speaks well on the BBC.

To be fair to Benn, here is a video of him being more impressive.

This is a rare situation where I have more sympathy with the revolutionary socialists than the hard-working mainstream activists who seek reform, not replacement, of capitalism. The hagiography of Benn, where it happens, is dangerous. It not only ascribes a revolutionary energy to a man who did not have any, it suggests that revolutionary speech is more important than action. It is even possible to interpret Benn's life as an example of how the state can allow a degree of subversion, to give the impression that it matters.

Of course, it is possible to replace 'Jesus' with 'Guevara', 'Lenin' or 'Hitler'. My argument has weaknesses. And it's unlikely you'll see me telling a dictator off for abusing human rights on Channel 4. 

One last video and then I'll get back to trolling the Edinburgh Fringe. He's Benn chatting with a Jewish comedian. Response to this depends on whether the viewer is sympathetic or not to Benn's politics. Does Benn look cool or does Ali G take him to task?

Freedom of Speech: this is where it started

Although I haven't watched all of his videos - and I am waiting to find the one where he explains why feminists are dumb or religious people shouldn't be allowed to vote - but CGP Grey sounds like a rare voice of reason on YouTube.

My late night trawling of th'internet (see, it is constructive, not illicit) led me to this little piece, which might not tell me anything I wasn't vaguely aware of - it is basically the meme theory of ideas - but does clarify a frustrating phenomena: why do idiots get all the hits on blogs and that?

Grey's argument explains both why The Amazing Atheist is an ally of feminism and how the debate about Free Pride and Safe Spaces has turned into a whole another thing.

Given the information, handed to me in this video, I am now going to spend the afternoon crafting a blog post to see how angry I can make everyone. If you have been directed to this post by me, it's because you made a statement in connection with the special post, which is an experiment in mimetic distribution and mutation.

 

Freedom of speech... let's hunt down and kill Bill Hicks

Freedom of Speech - Ana Hine made me think again

Freedom of Speech; The BNP, remember them?

Hands up who remembers the BNP? Old Nick Wassisface on Question Time, a very real fear that they were going to get seats in Parliament, former NF boot-boys sitting on local councils. Nice and easy for anti-fascists. These characters liked nothing better than shouting stupid shit and winding up Muslim sympathisers. Simpler times.

Wassisface got booted out of the club-house – after a speech suggesting that the party go on a scrap metal drive to raise funds. A few of them probably joined the English Defence League, who provide hunting opportunities throughout the year for SWP members, maybe a couple are going to turn up in UKIP.

Nick was one of those irritating idiots who end up being justified not by their own opinions (he was fruit loops, anyway), but by the over-reaction of the opposition. When he was on Question Time, anti-racists stormed the BBC and demanded that he be given no platform. Luckily, the BBC gave him a platform, which he fell off and began the descent into obscurity.

Letting the BNP have their moment worked. Freedom of Speech undermined them. That's not to discount the activities of the protesters – they get their freedom too – but extremists tend to implode when they get attention. The distorted, even wicked philosophy gets exposed, and the Great Threat to Democracy can't do much more than bemoan the lack of coach trips to the countryside, because Muslims.

Hopefully, UKIP will go the same way – but calling them fascists is a bit rich. They have one clear policy (the EU is a bad idea), which is looking more intelligent to leftists after the Greek crisis, a load of racist nonsense (trying to pick up on Islamophobia, mostly) and a free market mentality. What they don't have is the eugenic pessimism of the Nazis, and they even allow gay people to have their own caucus. They are not fascists. They are more like a bad satire on a political party.

Freedom of Speech week: Tim Farron's Faith, by Mad Cyril

Let me tell you what the biggest danger to freedom of speech is in the UK. It's the farkin media, innit? Under the false guise of objective reportin, they follow their own agenda, gettin inta arguments abaht stuff that ain't even close ta the public innerest.

I usta like Channel 4, growin up as a little shaver. Late night art films, plenty of exotica talent, if ya know what I mean. Queen's speech done by a real queen at Christmas (they had that Quentin Crisp on one time, I fink). Could be relied upon to have a bit of the other on - comedies like Desmond's, No Problem. Loving it.

But here's their latest - some chat abaht whether that new Lib-Dem leader hates gays because he is Christian. Strike a light, I'm not sayin that fundamentalists are ever the sharpest tools in the box - taking anyfin literally's a mug's game. 

So, this Tim Farron got the word from the rest of his gang, and suddenly he's getting asked about his religious beliefs. Specifically, as a evangelical Christian, does he think that homosexuals are sinners? Idiot refuses to answer, points to his voting record, Channel 4 News has a special session about it.

They get a secular member of his party and a psychiatrist (whom they make a point of introducin as a former basketball playa (me, neither)). They toss around a few ideas, the main one bein that Tim's voted the right way when it comes to gay marriage, anutha bein his right to have Christian beliefs and be a politician. Someone shouts witch hunt and the segment ends. Roughly that.

Here's the thin. Tim does think that homosexuals are sinners. If he's been readin his Bible, he thinks everyone is a sinner. There's this bit right at the front of the book, says how all humans are condemned to sin because this bloke Adam was naughty. It's the whole point: humans are sinners. 

It's a bit pessimistic and all. Luckily, Jesus came along and redeemed everyone. So it worked out in the end.

In short - asking him what he reckons about any group of people bein sinners misses the point. A better question would have been - 'given your religious beliefs, Mr Farron, do you regard people of a hom'sexual persuasion to be inferior to hetties?'

Because the answer to that would be no, I reckon. Yuman Rights are not some special thing that're only available to the sinless; if they were, only Jesus could have them. Even The Pope would have to shut his yap. 

Fundamentalist Christianity, which I think is a heresy anyway, has had a bit o' a 'abit of goin all socially conservative. But Farron said he is a Liberal Democrat. A Liberal. See?

It'd great if the news could call the politicians to account on something that mattered now and again, eh?

Freedom of Speech Week: Free Pride

Of course, by the time that I decided to wade into another subject that I have no authority to discuss, Free Pride had apologised for its decision not to book drag acts. Luckily, it provides plenty of internet chatter so that I can pick my favourite comments and pretend I know what I am talking about.

Let me try to sketch out the history. Free Pride is a response to the increasingly commercial nature of the annual Scottish Pride Parade. It has made statements condemning corporate sponsorship and the entry fee. 

It then decided not to book drag acts, as members of the group were concerned that drag might be seen as offensive to transgender people. 

The internet got involved, and Titti La Camp got angry. There were protests against the decision - including a very articulate explanation of drag's history by Sam Rowe on Free Pride's Facebook page. There was a comment on the irony that a Free Pride fundraiser intended to show a film about activist Martha P Johnson. 

Safe spaces, which is what Free Pride were trying to provide, are something I respect. Equally, I admire challenging people's sense of gender identity through a carnivalesque transvestism. Unfortunately, this event has provoked an argument that, once again, seems irreconcilable: the right to drag against the right to feel safe.

My opinion doesn't count here, but it's obvious that I would be on the side of the drag queens. Free Pride has been very quick to condemn ICON (quite rightly) for its use of black-face. No-platforming drag acts is not an act of inclusion, though. Free Pride talks about community (not a word I like, since I regard it as the commodification of the simpler 'hanging out', commonly used by arts groups who fancy a pop at funding) and inclusion. Not having drag acts excludes a bunch of people.

Admittedly, Free Pride didn't ever mind the audience doing drag, but drag is dynamic art form, and has been a visible part of the cabaret scene, as well as getting down with the activists. 

But I find a more abstract discussion more intriguing: the tension between the right of a group to define its own moral boundaries against the rights of members within that group to self-expression. It's the same problem I found in the What About the Children legislation: the people in an area would be given the right to prevent the arrival of lap-dancing clubs. Well, not the people, their local council. But that's representative democracy. 

"Po-faced Guardianista who takes offence at anything"

You said it, Owen Jones, not me. I probably don't share your opinion on the Royal Family - I treat them as a given, a bit like death or romantic failure - but this article on Prince Philip's latest attempt to displace Jim Davidson as the King of Comedy is weak sauce.

My relationship with The Guardian is not untroubled. I share some of its political opinions, but find it frequently dogmatic and unreflective. Having a column called First Thoughts makes my point. It's a knee-jerk response, not a considered debate.

So, God damn it, thanks for encouraging me to jump to Prince Philip's defence. Sigh.

A quick summary. Some ladies give Phil's wife a cake. He quips

'who do you sponge off?', they laugh, The Metro article hints that Phil's a man of the people for his wit, Owen Jones weaves an argument for Republicanism out of the punchline. 

As Jones notes, Phil the Greek (do they still call him that? It is a bit racist) has form for saying stupid, racist and sexist things at public events. And despite the outrage, he tends to get away with it. The public sighs, mumbles that, well, he's like that, and gets on with worrying about paying the rent. 

Jones makes a telling contrast. 

If you’re Mr or Mrs Normal Citizen and foul your Twitter feed with racism, you’re pretty much inviting a P45. But if you are one of the symbols of the nation, then apparently you have carte blanche scrawled with “Fill your boots and everyone will just chuckle!” Except that wouldn’t be a carte blanche anymore … but you know what I mean.

As it goes, I think Phil ought to be able to wander about saying stupid shit. I also think Mr or Mrs Normal Citizen ought to be allowed to fill their Twitter feed with racism. I also think Owen Jones needs to be there to criticise both sets of behaviour. But this time, I think Phil was not being offensive.

Well, if a senior politician expressed sentiments that aren’t, let’s just say, very favourable to women as a whole, it would be goodbye career. 

Phil didn't do that, though, did he? Jones is ignoring the context. Phil addressed some specific women, who had just baked a cake.

He didn't say 'all women are spongers.' My God, the joke actually sounds as if Phil was playing with the idea of his reputation, challenging his audience to take offence.

Had he been smarter, he could have done a Jimmy Carr face and asked 'too soon?'

My support for freedom of speech is pretty selfish - I want to be able to say what I want - and I hate having to defend Prince Philip, Jim Davidson or Jimmy Carr. I don't like racism, I don't like sexism, and those topics are complicated enough for a lifetime of discussion. I complain against them, not against people's right to express them. 

That is where I am bit less selfish and more principled. I am committed to dialectic as the process for the evolution of human consciousness. In other words, open conversation allows ideas to develop. The expression of racism is an opportunity to challenge racism.

Jones' article has a swipe at Prince Philip, but doesn't recognise the real naughty boy here: the media. You see, if the media choose to ignore Prince Philip, there would be no fuss, no argument. He'd say something dumb, no-one would no, The Daily Mail couldn't chuckle indulgently - and get annoyed by Jones' disloyalty to the monarchy. And Jones could write about something he is good on, like the demonisation of the working classes, instead of acting like a second rate Court Reporter. 

He wouldn't have exposed a few weaknesses in his thinking process, either.

It’s perfectly right to hesitate before criticising a 94-year-old, out of respect for his age. And I think that’s a good point.

Nope. You did bad things, you get called on them. Age is not the point. 

I appreciate Prince Philip must tire of being constantly photographed, which is why there’s a strong case for rotating the position of head of state so that they and their spouse get some respite.

Not really, Owen. It's unclear whether the weakness of an individual can become an argument against the institution itself. I don't like David Cameron, but I am not sure he's evidence that the position of Prime Minister is a bad idea. 

Jones concludes with a fair point: it is better now that ant-racists and feminists and LGBTQ campaigners have discouraged random abuse being flung about on the streets. And for many of Phil's jokes, he is rightly called out. But for a writer of Jones' calibre, an opinion piece on Royal Gaffes is a waste of time: I'd like to see him grapple more often with heavy topics, which he does boldly.

The Dramaturgical Tightrope: Cressida @ Edfringe 2015

Walking the Tightrope - a selection of explosive, political short plays by stellar writers Caryl Churchill, Ryan Craig, Tim Fountain, Omar El

Khairy, Neil LaBute, Gbolahan Obisesan, Mark Ravenhill and Timberlake Wertenbaker. Written in response to issues of censorship and boycott that arose due to the cancellation of cultural events in 2014, these eight five-minute plays explore contrasting views on Freedom of Expression in the arts in the UK. 

After part 1 of Walking the Tightrope (the showing of all eight plays), there will be a panel discussion. Here, the audience responses are as important as the playwrights’ opinions and the discussions in part 2 are geared towards replacing a fury of warring tweets with facilitated conversation. Underbelly Topside from 5^th August at 3.35pm.

The Fringe

What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?Cressida: I began with an idea. An idea to get people of all different opinions on boycott, censorship, and 'dirty' funding of arts organisations into the same room together; and encourage them to listen and debate with real people about the subject the plays presented rather than just furiously tweet at one another about the issues on-line. 

For Offstage, my theatre company, I always begin with an idea; very rarely a script.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?The first answer is the Underbelly. I come from a site-specific background so I am always seeking the relevance of the performance space to the material. The plays are all theatrical responses to the closure of three high profile cultural events last year. One of which happened at the Underbelly. So where better to perform it. 

Aside from that, the Festival has the largest catchment of nationwide and international artists and audiences in the world. Freedom of expression is a worldwide issue which unfortunately is always relevant. I am really excited by the fact we will be adding these voices to the debate which started in London.


What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?They will see eight extraordinary short plays with different opinions on the complexities of freedom of expression.

Who knows what they’ll think! There will be a mixture of empathy or frustration with different plays depending on your starting point. But I think what will stand out in this production is that we want to know what the audience’s opinions are – and we want to give them the space to voice them.

That’s why we have an audience discussion afterwards facilitated by a panel of contrasting ‘expert’ opinions. It’s the hope that by the end of the performance the original starting points of the individual audience member may have shifted and journeyed on a little.



The Dramaturgy Questions
How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?Usually dramaturgy is crucial to Offstage’s work as all plays are created from scratch over a long period of time. Without dramaturgy the plays would never be created.

However, with Walking the Tightrope dramaturgy has taken the back seat as it’s the voices of the writers that matter. My creative influence over content has been limited. You can’t tell a writer what to write or that their piece might be one sided in a production about freedom of expression!

Having said that there was a certain dramaturgy in the search for as many contrasting opinions from the writers we selected. For the collection to work as a whole we needed to ensure we were guaranteeing a tapestry of different attitudes and views. Specifically, however, the most frequent dramaturgical note has just been to cut the piece down to the required five minutes.


What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?I think I am always trying to break tradition; particularly the site-specific tradition.

The first show I created, HOME by Gbolahan Obisesan, was very site-specific in its conception. It was about the former residents of three 20 storey towers blocks that were being torn down as part of regeneration of on the notorious Beaumont Estate. It was staged promenade around one of the tower blocks just before it was demolished. Since those very site-specific origins I have strived for my work to interrogating what ‘site-responsive’ can actually be.

For example AMPHIBIANS, based on interviews with former Olympic swimmers, reversed the meaning of site specific theatre (bringing theatre to a non-theatre site) by bringing a non-theatre site back to the theatre, excavating the pool under the Bridewell Theatre stage. Or my cross art-form DRAWING PLAY asked how can an audience create their own space during a show. In this family show, the audience drew as well as watched, their pictures beginning to influence the action before them; until the entire theatre became their canvas.

In fact this year, I will revisiting my first site-specific production HOME with Bruntwood Prize winner Anna Jordan. Now 10 years later we are going to find the people rehoused whom we originally interviewed in the Beaumont Estate towers and create a sequel about their lives. What most excited me about this project is how you can create a sequel to a site-specific show when the actual original site that no longer exists.


Otherwise, it always surprises people when I tell them I also am indebted and addicted to Shakespeare, even though I am viewed primarily as an experimental theatre maker. His breaking of the fourth wall, his subversion of audience expectations, and his casting of the audience has been a huge influence on Offstage’s work.

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?Offstage almost always extensively interview a given community to create their site-responsive plays – which is why Walking the Tightrope is a bit of an oddity.

I begin with an idea – a community, a theme, a place – that I want to create a play about and then I interview people associated with that idea so that I have a wealth of research.

I then collaborate with a writer who takes these interviews and creates a play collaboratively with me that will go on to be staged in a relevant space. How space tells the story is equally as important to me as the text. The audience's experience and journey through the play are often based dramaturgically on truths received during the initial interview process.

It’s probably best to give an example here! It was really important for me in AMPHIBIANS that our performance space – the forgotten derelict pool that had been previously been hidden under the Bridewell theatre stage – remained both theatre and swimming pool. The audience came sweeping out of the deep end to the curvaceous balcony surrounding the poolside on seats, but we kept a platform of the makeshift stage at the shallow end. This was because so many of the former Olympic swimmers we had interviewed talked about the theatre of the Olympics and their sport. 

They called a race ‘a performance’, and spoke about the necessity of ‘being in the moment’. They also revealed how difficult it was being a ‘real’ human being after their early retirement in their 20s, because they now felt like a nobody after the eyes of the world being upon them before. This influenced how the audience was lit and felt part of the action when the play flashed back to the characters’ youth as athletes, and then how they disappeared into the darkness when the action moved to the present of two former Olympians meeting in the derelict Bridewell swimming pool - it was as if they no longer had an audience.

A set designer, lighting designer, and choreographer will all be involved in the development of the piece so that they all evolve and then unite together to tell our story.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
The role of audience is most the important thing in making the meaning of my work.

Usually in Offstage productions I always ‘cast’ the audience. This does not mean giving them a speech and a costume, but it does mean the actor acknowledging that they are present, and the audience understanding what their ‘role’ is within the context of the piece.

I really believe that this is the only way theatre is going to survive as an art form. The live audience watching live action and what the implications are of that, is the only thing that distinguishes theatre from film.

Even when doing more traditional work, I cast the audience so that they feel present in the action. In my promenade version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead around the Novello Theatre the audience were ‘cast’ as latecomers to David Tennant’s Hamlet at the RSC; as if Hamlet was going on on-stage. They were led around the box office, foyers, bars, backstage, and auditorium of the theatre by an irate usher around the building where they encountered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 

The two protagonists could not see the audience – they had no idea that they were in a theatre, they thought they were in Elsinore – whilst Stoppard’s Players very much interacted with the audience, eventually leading all of them onto the actual stage for the final scene in the play.

More recently, with Walking the Tightrope, I have started to explore further the audience's presence by attempting to treat the very act of theatre as a social experiment. What can you do when all those people come into the same room as each other? What social power lies in them all being there together? It is my hope that Walking the Tightrope attempts to answer that. People may disagree with one another or the plays presented, but just by being there they will all have to listen to other people's views.

More on Freedom of Speech

What was that I was saying about freedom of speech?

That's right, I rejected Amnesty International's acceptance that the government is an appropriate authority to define hate speech. 

 Camila Batmanghelidjh (left) attends a ‘big society’ meeting chaired by prime minister David Cameron in 2010. Photograph: Ben Stansall/PA

As if by magic, David Cameron's gang has provided me with evidence. Never mind the slightly mawkish use of Remember Tunisia as their Facebook page's picture (although the lack of context could make this an example of incitement). The Guardian has reported that Kids Company has been forced to remove two of its board in order to secure funding.

As the article makes clear, it is possible that there are issues within the organisation, but founder Camila Batmanghelidjh has expressed concern that her departure is a condition of government support. She has recently articulated a series of complaints against The Conservatives' policies on child support.

The issue is not clear cut: whether the problems in Kids Company are down to her leadership, or part of a campaign to silence her opinions, the debate is open. And one question is whether the government are using their powers to discourage protest.

Freedom or Liberal Privilege?

Not many Laughs Here

Two things that are not laughing matters

I notice that Dapper Laugh's posters don't mention that he is a comedian. That's just as well, because his miserably unfunny routines could be prosecuted under Trade Descriptions if he associated his liberal baiting nonsense with comedy. 

Campus, who are hosting Dapper's chance 'to connect with his fans' are optimistic: when a campaign was launched to get him off ITV4, no counter-campaign appeared. Other obnoxious characters, like the one who likes to compensate for his low self-esteem by racing about in fast cars, at least had support. Dapper had to go on Newsnight and apologise for being a tool.

They are also suggesting that the night will be 'student friendly'. I'm depressed that his lowest-common denominator ramblings would appeal to anyone, let alone the future graduates of Scotland. Still, I guess that needed some excuse, and 'gay friendly' or 'woman friendly' would be outright lies.

So, yes, Dapper is unfunny, sexist, witless and tedious: it would be a sign of an equal society when a woman, or a trans stand-up, could be as atrocious as Dapper, and still get gigs. 

In the meantime, trying to 'no platform' him is a tactical mistake. I know that 'freedom of speech' has its problems (Dapper being one of them), but a petition to ban him is more dangerous.

Above all, it suggests that a certain authority has the right to decide whether a performer is socially acceptable. I'm not sure who the campaign is asking to get Dapper out, but it has to consider: if the right to ban an artist is approved in principle - who will be next? Freedom of speech is one of those things that has to be universal, even for an ugly slug mentality like Dapper. 

Furthermore, I am not sure Dapper is the problem - he is just a symptom. Given the quality of his banter, I'd suggest that he didn't come up with the idea of 'being rude as humour', but expresses a deeper sexism that he only represents. Kick out Dapper - but Jim 'Nick Nick' Davidson is still performing. 

I'd like to propose a few more creative protests.

Organise a rival gig on the day when he is in town. Get comedians who are opposed to Dapper's sexism to make jokes about Dapper. 

Attend a Man For a Day workshop with Diane Torr. Turn up at Dapper's gig in male drag and stand at the front. Heckle him - maybe rewrite the song from Bridge Over the River Kwai, replacing the name 'Hitler' with 'Dapper'.

Dapper is doing a meet and greet, with a free photo opportunity. Make some t-shirts with appropriate slogans (maybe a finger pointing to the side and 'this insults women'?). Get that photo op action, then put the image on twitter. 

Vandalise his posters. This has already started, but remember Mark Thomas' top tip: wear a high-viz jacket, and no-one will question you. 

Of course, these are more direct actions, and Dapper might think he is being bullied. How about asking Dapper to share the bill with a female comedian, who could make jokes about male insecurity. I'd worry that Dapper's fan might be hostile, but there's only about six of them in Glasgow, right?

For the Daughters of Ishtar

Here's a difficult position to defend: the celebration that 'theatre with nudity is exempt from sex license law' is a depressing example of how people within the arts regard themselves as somehow above the law, but also how they flagrantly fail to apply their hope for 'freedom of expression' to anyone outside their sacred circle.

I've been following the 'air weapons and licensing bill' with increasing alarm for the past six months. My main complaint has been that a bill designed to control scrap metal and guns does not do justice to the complexity of licensing issues around 'venues designed for sexual entertainment'. It reads like a tacked-on clause, making this bill a general moral grand-standing rather than a serious attempt to consider the role and consequences of lap-dancing on society. 

This isn't a defence of lap-dancing clubs, nor is it a condemnation of a political body simultaneously expanding its power to define entertainment without taking moral responsibility (I'll get to that elsewhere). 

This is a short expression of irritation at the way that theatre has begged for special exemptions from a law, rather than considering the law's implications.

Jon Morgan, director of the Federation of Scottish Theatre, told the committee last month that this could affect performances at the Edinburgh Festival which contain nudity or explore issues such as pornography.

And The Scotsman's article goes on to describe how Mr Matheson recognised this danger and would include provisions to protect performances.

Interestingly, one of the examples Morgan gave was Sister, a well-received show which, among other issues, attempted to justify sex-work and present sex-workers (including lap-dancers) in a more positive light. It was described as a legitimate work of art (which it is) that might be censored by the legislation. 

However, Morgan's example reveals the problem. During the show, the sisters are naked and perform two lap dances on audience members, presumably of the same sort seen in 'sexual entertainment venues'. The work, which was designed to open up the conversation about how lap-dancers are regarded has become a totem for the defence of 'high-art' and an argument for a division between what happens in the club and the theatre. 

In other words, art that intended to defend lap-dancers has become a weapon to reduce them to a lower level in a moral hierarchy.

Over the past few years, there have been a rash of plays in the Edinburgh Fringe which take lap-dancing as their subject - some have been thoughtful reflections on the industry, others have had a voyeuristic delight in appropriating a community that justifies flashing some tits on stage. These, presumably, will not be bothered by the new bill: their framing as performance presumably gives them credibility and value. Equally, Nic Green's Fatherland, which has her doing a highland strip, will get a pass. 

Well, good for freedom of expression, but if that freedom comes with a price of 'aesthetic or moral value', it isn't freedom. As seems to be the refrain of activists for freedom of speech, it's no good allowing freedom just for things that you like, even though that pretty much seems to be as far as theatre community's pleasure at their exemption reaches. 

No More Page 3

See also... 

"Je ne sais qu'une chose, c'est que je ne sais rien." part 2