http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/mar/02/protest-national-theatre-play-row

To paraphrase: Hussain and a friend, Keith Kinsella, barged onstage during an after-show discussion in order to … call Richard Bean a racist again. Clearly he decided that the readership of Guardian Blogs was not a large enough audience for his grievances (though I’m a white middle-class male, so my having enjoyed the production in the least makes me a racist too, and thus my opinions are invalid).

“non-funded, independent and impartial websites”

Surely unavoidably, all websites are funded, dependent and partial? Especially when they are hosting the voices of funded, depentent and partial people. So long as the platform is accessible to all and uncensored, I don’t see the problem.

This would be different if you revealed to us all a link between Hussain Ismail and the NT PR department. It would make quite the scoop. And no doubt the guardian would (quite rightly) deem it ‘news-worthy’, give it a head line and a comments field…

I have a fair amount of managerial experience in the publishing industry. I’ve sat on a number of editorial boards and committees over the years, and for a brief time, I chaired the board of a sizeable arts organisation. Since retirement, I have switched from being a producer to a consumer of information. I have a healthy infatuation with the theatre and I now have time for long walks with my two Labradors, but that’s by the by.

Now perhaps I’m being overly sensitive or out of touch, but I have witnessed first hand the consequences of corporate strategy on shaping cultural content. However it is only very recently, with the sudden rise of the Internet, that I have begun to think about how this strategy also influences public debate.

That Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice has stirred debate is fantastic, and I wholeheartedly agree with Matt Boothman on that point. That attempts have been made by the mainstream media to corner and house that debate, without the disclosure of ulterior strategic motives is something I find increasingly intolerable – particularly when it plays a role in forming people’s opinions of the production. This latter claim is corroborated in the comment section to the aforementioned article by Hussain Ismail.

The more I consider the astonishing potential for shared experience, mutual understanding and meaningful collaboration that the Internet faciliates, the more I am convinced that non-funded, independent and impartial websites should house these interactions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/feb/15/england-people-very-nice-review

Regardless of any hidden agenda The Guardian may have in posting these vitriolic points and counterpoints, I’m happy to see that the play is encouraging a high-profile public debate on multiculturalism. It makes broad statements on controversial topics, engendering strong agreement or disagreement but never apathy or indifference; I’d like to think that’s why Nicholas Hytner chose to stage and direct it, rather than because of any artistic merit (because as I and others have said, its artistic merit is questionable at best).

Yes of course the Guardian blogs provide a platform for independent writers to reach a wider audience and such is the case of Hussain Ismail’s article, one of the main pieces of criticism against the Bean/Hytner creation – and that’s a very good thing. But how conscious was Mr. Ismail of contributing to the Guardian’s commercial agenda (framing controversy for web traffic + ad revenue) at the time of emailing his article to the editor?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/feb/13/national-theatre-play-racist

As for the play, I wasn’t impressed either. I’m just pleased that I saw it ‘untainted’ – i.e. before the mainstream media launched its cash for controversy campaigns.