There is an age-old but ongoing controversy surrounding Arts funding which roughly equates to a battle between those who wish to maintain a high cultural level of quality in the arts, and those who see that as an unequal subsidy skewed towards the wealthy. Maybe I would be able to pose another point of view in favour of a high level but egalitarian attitude to culture. This would entail supporting culture for all, but a culture than uplifts and inspires. It’s not quite enough just to entertain, to pass the time. Going wider than the arts, the biggest shows that ordinary people go out to see in their masses would include football matches, and football is OK. Anything that gets people out of the homes and into a crowd where a common simultaneous experience can be shared. Putting aside cultural norms for one moment, It’s all about being part of the crowd and common experience. Watching a live music performance is another example. Why do people go to gigs, when you could just stay at home and play the albums? Why go to see a musical theatre show, when you could stay at home and watch a DVD or Blu Ray or a hologram. Well to my mind a big part of the answer must be the desire or need to be a part of that shared experience. It makes the emotional story so much more colourful when it’s amplified through hundreds of fellow people enjoying roughly the same ups and downs at almost the same time. So we need that joint pleasure, and we go to the theatre with our friends and loved ones, or with a large crowd of total strangers, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to have the emotions engaged, we seem to need that. To get the best quality experience you want to see a top quality show, which usually, but by no means always, means coming to London and subsequently staying overnight in or very near the capital. Travelling on a train is to be an individual against the crowd but on a coach you are part of the party, it comes together into one contingent moving down the motorways together. So what I’m trying to say is that the very reasons for going on theatre breaks are also reasons to do it by coach as well, and turn the shared experience from just a couple of hours into a full two or three day one.
↧