It's The Vile Top Seven: Number Seven

On The Radio Hour, top DJ and sound engineer at the coolest parties, Josh Hill correctly complained that the annual Hot Lists tend to miss out the personal - as he putting it, "more huffing of poppers outside the Old Hairdressers" and less grand statements about the state of the nation. In this spirit, I wrote a highly personal top ten. Then I realised that "five great text messages" won't end up on anyone's publicity material.

As a compromise, and a sop to my massive ego, I am going to identify the seven top trends in my thinking. This will allow me to mention as many events as I like, and still make it all about me. I challenge the artists mentioned to include my shout out to them in their next application for funding.

Trend no. 7: My Continued Inability to Integrate a Political Consciousness into my Aesthetic Critique.

Fond as I am of banging on about alienation, I still struggle to see the best way for political philosophy to appear within performance. The highly dramatic boycott of Israeli company Batsheva Dance made a passionate appeal on behalf of the Palestinian people, but managed to piss off plenty of liberal critics who found it intrusive (the show was stopped by chanting groups inside the auditorium) and hypocritical (The Russian ballet company up the road didn't get any attention, despite having a state that enjoys oppressing minorities, too).

There are arguments on both sides - mostly focussing on the exact relationship between Batsheva's tour and the amount of funding provided by the Israeli government - but life would easier if the choreographer in question wasn't both brilliant and personally ambivalent about the antics of his government.

While this was the most publicised political action in the arts - it had  similar heavy duty support that would give the weight to the complaints against Creative Scotland - politics has entered the theatre in more interesting ways - Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin had a look at the London riots for their entry at Oran Mor's Play, Pie, Pint programme, Make Better Please saw the previously personal Uninvited Guests strain against the build up of media inspired despair, and Lyn Gardner wrote a blog about political theatre in the Guardian. Alan Bissett, wearer of a very cool leather jacket, made explicit his support for an independent Scotland and David Greig set up a dialogue about national identity in his sequel to Macbeth.

In the time that I began writing criticism, the political was on the back-foot. Perhaps it was the amount of money, or moral support, being thrown at the artists under New Labour. Perhaps it was the emphasis on personal politics - like in the version of Wuthering Heights now being prepped for The Arches' Platform 18 Awards, the study of the self and identity was seen as far more important. Unfortunately, I am about to be left behind, having embraced that path - I am still more interested in art as a mirror of the audience than as a manifesto for a better world. But if Greig, Bissett, Taudevin and Hurley are investigating it, I am willing to believe that political theatre is making a comeback and is now relevant.

Glasgow Girls at the Citizens was also the first agit-prop musical that had a dub 7" handed out at the door - its good humoured mix of local history (it covered the campaign to protect asylum seekers), multi-cultural dance numbers and poignant satire made me reconsider both the musical and the theatre as a direct forum for political opinion.

Of course, I have been told by a dear and old friend that "everything is politics," and my continued insistence on the primacy of aesthetics is, in itself, an immoral conservatism. I am hoping that Arika hurry up with their next weekend of engaged readings and gigs. Their Special Form of Darkness weekender had a mixture of serious Marxist analysis and fun nihilism, which suits my anarchist instincts.

The Great Disappointment caused by Criticulous

Well, Santa Muerta. I guess one symbolic character deserves another, and sometimes even the President of the United States must stand naked.

Wait, is that right? Is that relevant? Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of taste... and little else. Your obedient servant, Criticulous, rising up in praise of the misreading, the imposition of prejudice and the perpetual denial of the fixed reading.

Santa Muerta, I guess we share this much: nobody's too pleased to see us when we come around, and we have a reputation for killing things. Ever wonder whether our creators have some kind of death wish?

So, I ended up writing this reply because Vile is, frankly, terrified of death. Your last speech struck a nerve - you can see it in the review he wrote. He knows, even if he denies it, that his fascination with religious thought is more than a simple intellectual respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages. It's a deeply held conviction that dangles on the thread of his childhood fear of death. Ask him about the time he met God. That's always good for a laugh at his expense.

As I understand it, you are asking us to embrace death... to embrace oblivion. Not out of some stupid suicidal impulse, but on the grounds that acknowledging death is a sure route to compassion - and a drive towards making meaning out of this meaningless universe. I get why you'd tend towards the nihilistic - I guess Santa Muerta handles those stars that explode, or whatever they do, and you've presided over some hairy situations. Say, was it you that God sent that time to take care of the Egyptians? Are you the same thing as the Angel of Death?

You'll indulge me the questions: like you have a will towards The Big End, I have a will towards criticism. I'm sure you'll appreciate the problems of being a cypher. Everything gets determined by the symbolism of our position. None of those human personality quirks for us. I mean, there's the possibility of irony for humans. Not for me.

Maybe I ought to present an alternative. Maybe I can suggest there are other ways to inspire than to recognise the innate fragility of human life. But you know what they say - you can't argue with death.

I rather admire how single-minded you can be. I suppose that's where we differ: you have a solid location. All the various cultural representations of death - those details that make you comprehensible to the limited consciousness - give you a personality, but they are all related to that one,  unalterable fact. You are the end of life.

It's not so simple for me. I have to be different - not in form, or description, but genuinely different every time I manifest. Perhaps not every single time. But I can't approach Pony Pie's show at the Oran Mor in the same way as I approach Michael Clark's Barrowland Project. Death just turns up at the end, switches the lights out. I have to pay attention to whatever is summoning me,and respond.

Death can  never get it wrong. Criticulous is bound to get it wrong.

Finally, an answer to your challenge. Sure, think of death if you like. It might make you more compassionate - although it is as likely that the Black Dog will turn up, or  you'll just end up being a pain at parties (Monfrooe does warn of these before she incarnated you, it's true). But being a critic... be like Criticulous... accept fallibility, be constantly alert to failure and success, assess, express, determine, be brave.

Ach, we probably don't disagree that much.