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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/08/harry-potter-play-apartheid-theatre-movies-smug-rich
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Harry Potter play exposes the social apartheid in our theatre | Harry Potter play exposes the social apartheid in our theatre |
| (3 months later) | |
| Tickets are on sale for the new London West End stage show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the inevitable online explosion in tickets getting resold – a single £130 ticket went for £2,000 – proves what I have always suspected: theatre is a horrendous apartheid world that discriminates in favour of the smug rich, and cinema is a socialist utopia where everyone is welcome equally. You want tickets to the new Harry Potter play? Good luck. You’d better be well connected or well off. | Tickets are on sale for the new London West End stage show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the inevitable online explosion in tickets getting resold – a single £130 ticket went for £2,000 – proves what I have always suspected: theatre is a horrendous apartheid world that discriminates in favour of the smug rich, and cinema is a socialist utopia where everyone is welcome equally. You want tickets to the new Harry Potter play? Good luck. You’d better be well connected or well off. |
| But when new Harry Potter movies were coming out, fans were treated democratically. They had access to the films and DVDs, and everyone from the hedge fund manager to the student nurse (or indeed the single mother forced to write books in the local cafe) paid the same and got the same experience. | But when new Harry Potter movies were coming out, fans were treated democratically. They had access to the films and DVDs, and everyone from the hedge fund manager to the student nurse (or indeed the single mother forced to write books in the local cafe) paid the same and got the same experience. |
| Now, I admit that live transmission of theatre into cinemas changes the game a bit. But what about cracking down on exploitative ticket-scalping? How about having the original buyers’ names printed on tickets, and making people show ID on the door? Otherwise the Potter play is just creating a grisly resale market, and magicking up profits for secondary ticket websites. | Now, I admit that live transmission of theatre into cinemas changes the game a bit. But what about cracking down on exploitative ticket-scalping? How about having the original buyers’ names printed on tickets, and making people show ID on the door? Otherwise the Potter play is just creating a grisly resale market, and magicking up profits for secondary ticket websites. |
| No encores for Glasto voters | No encores for Glasto voters |
| Can music change the world? There is a persistent tremor of unease on the subject of the EU/Glastonbury question. The referendum vote takes place on Thursday 23 June – the second day of Glastonbury – and it could be really close. | Can music change the world? There is a persistent tremor of unease on the subject of the EU/Glastonbury question. The referendum vote takes place on Thursday 23 June – the second day of Glastonbury – and it could be really close. |
| There are no EU voting booths at the festival. Glasto ticket-holders will have had to endure the unexciting business of registering for a postal or proxy vote, for which the deadline was Wednesday (though it could be extended). | There are no EU voting booths at the festival. Glasto ticket-holders will have had to endure the unexciting business of registering for a postal or proxy vote, for which the deadline was Wednesday (though it could be extended). |
| Emily Eavis has blogged on the importance of doing this, and Michael Eavis is a committed Bremainer. But have these postal votes been registered in time? Bremaining is perceived as a young person’s interest, with Brexiting supposedly the preserve of grumpy oldsters who are moreover more schooled in the tiresome pencil-and-paper business of voting, as opposed to liking, RT-ing, etc. | Emily Eavis has blogged on the importance of doing this, and Michael Eavis is a committed Bremainer. But have these postal votes been registered in time? Bremaining is perceived as a young person’s interest, with Brexiting supposedly the preserve of grumpy oldsters who are moreover more schooled in the tiresome pencil-and-paper business of voting, as opposed to liking, RT-ing, etc. |
| There may be about 175,000 people going to Glastonbury, so the vote would have to be on a knife edge for it to matter. The journalist and pollster Peter Kellner points out to me that in the case of a very close call, there is no facility for a recount of a referendum: the first result is set in stone, no matter what. I hope it’s not Brexit – but Brexit by a whisker would be even more worrying. | There may be about 175,000 people going to Glastonbury, so the vote would have to be on a knife edge for it to matter. The journalist and pollster Peter Kellner points out to me that in the case of a very close call, there is no facility for a recount of a referendum: the first result is set in stone, no matter what. I hope it’s not Brexit – but Brexit by a whisker would be even more worrying. |
| Ode to the poetry listener | Ode to the poetry listener |
| At Hay last week, Salman Rushdie lamented the lost art of memorising poetry. Christina Patterson, on this website, praised this skill as a “Zumba class for the little grey cells”. And the late Christopher Hitchens was known to launch into Yeats’s An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, which he claimed was irresistibly seductive. | At Hay last week, Salman Rushdie lamented the lost art of memorising poetry. Christina Patterson, on this website, praised this skill as a “Zumba class for the little grey cells”. And the late Christopher Hitchens was known to launch into Yeats’s An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, which he claimed was irresistibly seductive. |
| Reciting poetry off by heart is indeed a very pleasurable activity – for the reciter. For your nearest and dearest, who have become used to it as a kind of annoying tic, it is more challenging. Their eyes glaze over. As far as my own case goes, “duchess” is a dangerous trigger word, causing me to launch into Robert Browning’s poem My Last Duchess with full, hammy Larry Olivier-style hissing and simmering and Oscar-winning declaiming. | Reciting poetry off by heart is indeed a very pleasurable activity – for the reciter. For your nearest and dearest, who have become used to it as a kind of annoying tic, it is more challenging. Their eyes glaze over. As far as my own case goes, “duchess” is a dangerous trigger word, causing me to launch into Robert Browning’s poem My Last Duchess with full, hammy Larry Olivier-style hissing and simmering and Oscar-winning declaiming. |
| For a long time our family couldn’t go into any art gallery without me gesturing at some portrait and quoting Browning’s sinister lines: “Paint must never hope to reproduce the faint | For a long time our family couldn’t go into any art gallery without me gesturing at some portrait and quoting Browning’s sinister lines: “Paint must never hope to reproduce the faint |
| Half-flush that dies along her throat” (with some Hammer Horror emphasis on “throat”). Speaking poetry by heart is a lovely skill. So is having to listen. Politely. | Half-flush that dies along her throat” (with some Hammer Horror emphasis on “throat”). Speaking poetry by heart is a lovely skill. So is having to listen. Politely. |