25 December 2006 Written by Andrew Eglinton Print This Post  Email This Post

Like moths to the light we swarm; the nation has been in communion with food and television since dawn, and now that the collective groan of day has whimpered into night, what more fitting a choice could there be than Russell Crowe slaying his way through “Gladiator” on one channel and a documentary about Christ’s ‘hidden’ family on the other? It’s time to stop being a cog in this great Christmas machine and ponder two incidents that occurred tonight.

There is an hour after nightfall, and Koltès describes it best, the hour when “man and beast are falling savagely one upon another”*. Tonight I watched a gang of 15 restless youths (yes I did count them) from the safety of my 3rd floor window, as they surged through the street, propelled by the urge to confront the ‘man’, to disfigure ‘his’ language and crush him with as many F-words as fifteen angry tongues can spit out. No, it’s not the first time I’ve witnessed this, and indeed just a few months ago tabloid headlines were trumpeting this ‘nation’s’ supposed fear of its youth, but at every visual encounter with these kids (and they are still kids), what I see is a long trail of question marks rising from the debris: From what pit does their anger rise? Am I an agent in this social malaise? Who is responsible for their acts? Am I not, in part, the author of their regret?

About half an hour later, into the silent street came the sudden screech of tyres - doors were slammed shut, shouts went up and a different kind of violence ensued: this time it was domestic. I watched the young woman sway by the car, one hand held tight to her nose, the other extended to keep balance. The man was livid, very intimidating, he ordered her several times to get back in the car. She refused, she was bleeding and she’d begun to cry. He threatened to break her nose, to punch her some more. I called the police, but in the meantime, the woman had summoned the energy to make off on her own. The man jumped in his car and chased after her and a minute later they were out of sight. Ten minutes later and the police arrived, but of course there was nothing left to see, just the silence of a Christmas night. This is the day when Christ is said to have risen, reborn for us, to absolve us of our sins. While one rises another one falls. James Brown, the Godfather of soul, departed today, leaving with him a legacy of inspirational sound that will continue to fill the void long after my time…what a strange world this is.

In other news, readers of London Theatre Blog may have noticed a change in design. This is an initiative that came about for several reasons. Firstly, I took into consideration some visitor suggestions to do with reading long articles in white font against gold background in the previous design. While the design had wonderful ‘bells and whistles’ it did make it difficult to read, so I’m hoping that this new minimal, dark-on-light approach will remedy that. The second reason is to do with wanting to start the new year with a clean slate. I’m not talking about resolutions here, just a small sense of tabula raza, from which I hope to take this site to a new level. And last but not least, modifying templates for the site is always a good opportunity for me to learn more about coding. They say ‘code is poetry’ and although I’m still not that much of a geek to believe that, I’m beginning to see certain signs.

I’d like to end this post by saying thank you to all the people who’ve stopped by this blog, to those who have taken time out to read bits and pieces, and to my fellow theatre bloggers for their support. I wish everyone an amazing new year 2007. Go out and live your dreams!

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Photograph: Herby released under Creative Commons License

* From In the Solitude of Cotton Fields by Bernard-Marie Koltès