Boot fault
I was dismayed and angry to see Mark Fisher list The Great Northern Welly Boot Show as one of the ten milestones of the Traverse Theatre (Box of Delights. The List 177). The reality was that we (known as ‘The
Offshore Theatre Company‘) staged
the theatrical work-in as a profit-share co-operative venture in the Waverley Market. many metres and regimes from the aforesaid Traverse.
Your information is obviously
coming from a very unreliable source '
and I feel you should maybe print a retraction and apology to the talented cast and company. many of whom went on to 7:84 Scotland. Perhaps allow those involved in Welly Boot to reply. including Billy Connolly, Bill Paterson, Juliet Cadzow. John Bett, John Byrne. etc as well as a big sorry to the actual writer: Tom Buchan, not Tom McGrath who was the musical director.
Perhaps this is not merely a gross mistake but another symptom ofthe disrespect meted out to the acting and writing professions in Scotland; the people who do the majority of the work and receive the minimum of reward and recognition.
Andrew R. Byatt
actorStudio
Hanover Street
Edinburgh
Mark Fisher retracts his false statement that The Great Northern Welly Boot Show was performed at the Traverse, apologises to all concerned and has been despatched to Inchcolm Island to grow the trees for Ricky Demarco ’5 next production of Macbeth.
Racketahuse
Sorry to see you still haven‘t actually listened to Southside’s music. Maybe ifyou had you wouldn’t insist on describing them as ‘lightweight guitar pop”. It‘s a shame.
Kirsten Hey
Rosslyn Crescent
Edinburgh
We have. It is.
Unseeded pairing?
What was in Trevor Johnston’s mind when he wrote the article about The Lover in the last issue of The List? Some euphemisms are destined for greater things but ‘pro-celebrity hide
LE'I'I'ERS
The long wait is over! A mere six months have passed, and you’ve
,' the salami’ is not one of them.
We all know what pro-celebrity
3 means from the golfing game:
professionals and celebrities playing together. So far, so clear, but how do
. you make the distinction when
writing about the pairings ofJack Nicholson with Jessica Lange and Carrie Otis with Mickey Rourke? Are you saying that Nicholson is a professional at hiding the salami? He actually gets paid for it? Or is he a mere celebrity and Lange the professional? Scurrilous stuff indeed and with great potential for lawsuits. Mine‘s a tequila.
Miles Cameron
Mosspark
Glasgow
Well, we liked the phrase, Miles, even if you didn’t. Still, play a game of ‘Jose-Cuervo hide the gold tequila’ on us.
One set to love
Last issue, you ran a letter berating Trevor Johnston for making light of the Holocaust. Fifty pages earlier, Alan Morrison is guilty ofsomething very similar in his A-Z Sex on Screen panel. What is Deep Throat doing in a light-hearted list of cinematic hanky panky? Does Morrison not realise that Linda Lovelace was abducted and forced at gunpoint to perform some of the deeds he calls ‘inventive’? I don’t care whether or not she is lying. Her strenuous disavowal should be enough to disqualify the film from cameos in this kind of schoolboy, wink-wink journalism.
finally gawped at Erasure, hummed along with Bryan Adams and been thrilled by Batman. But was it worth it? If not, take off into the great outdoors, or drop us a line at The List. You might win a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila. Now that’s worth waiting for!
If you were short of an entry for ‘D’. I wonder why you did not include Desert Hearts. Was lesbianism perhaps not ‘sexy‘ enough?
Alistair Bisset Sutherland Avenue Glasgow.
Out of court
As a whale lover and very active volunteer campaigner against whaling, I looked forward to the International Whaling Commission meeting in Glasgow from 28 June to 3 July at the Central Station hotel with hope for a continuation of the ban on commercial whaling; the end of whaling conducted under the banner of scientific study; and the setting up of a whale sanctuary in the waters around Antarctica. But I was worried about how I was going to fill my spare time once these hopes were realised.
I need not have worried: as I write this letter, (during the very first day ofthe IWC meeting) I have already learned that Iceland have left the IWC to continue whaling outwith any governmental control, Norway will set their own quotas and resume whaling whether the ban is lifted or not and Japan has been bribing and bullying smaller, less powerful, IWC members (eg Caribbean countries) to vote with them for a lifting of the ban. (Whale meat sells in Japan for up to £130 a pound).
May I take this opportunity to thank the delegates from these three countries for making sure that my spare time will continue to be filled. Yeah, thanks a bunch.
Stan Blackley Gilmore Place Edinburgh
l l ! l l l l
Double fault
Both Trevor Johnston and David Gould (The List letters 177) missed the point in their po-faced. politically correct and pompous remarks about Europa Europa.
The fact that Europa Europa has a very serious point to make takes nothing away from the reality that it is afunny film. Salomen Perel. fresh-faced throughout. bumbles his way from one farcical situation to another. managing to survive the utter horror of World War II by a series ofcoincidences and accidents. This is neither an ‘unintentionally comedic effect” (Johnston) nor the ‘dcnigration ofthe mass-murder of
89 per cent ()chwish children in Europe‘ (Gould).
This is the use of humour (remember that?) to illustrate just how wrong. stupid and immoral the Nazi state was. By giving the audience permission to laugh when Perel attempts to tie up his penis so as to simulate a foreskin. by making it a comic situation. the director allows us to actually consider the full implications of the boy‘s predicament.
The Holocaust. and the lessons it teaches us. must never be forgotten, particularly at the moment when racism is rearing its ugly head both at home and abroad. Europa Europa helps keep the memory alive and teaches the lessons. The fact that the audience is able to laugh while it does so is in its favour and to be applauded.
Lisa Graham Kcrsland Street Glasgow
Post Script
Address your letters to:
The List Letters at:
14 High Street.
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Of
Old Athenaeum Theatre.
179 Buchanan Street.
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Of
Fax them to: ()31 557 8500.
We will not print your full address or phone number, but you must include them. Deadline is the Friday before publication. Long letters may be cut. The best letter next issue will win a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila.
NEXT ISSUE OUT ON THURSDAY 16 JULY
Sex and power: secrets of the male mind exposed Summer health: front alternative births to psychic auras August gold: Best Intentions gets the Palme d'Or
NOT ONLY TIM 'l', BU'I' A LSO. . .
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76The List 3- 16July 1992
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