Headless

Curiously, despite its disturbing content, Headless is getting some support at Authonomy and slowly ascending the ranks. It is now at number 127.
http://www.authonomy.com/books/34628/headless/
Of course it is rather depressing to see yourself overtaken by the formulaic.

Will Joker Brown team-up with Two-Face Clegg?

Holy coalition of evil, Batman! The Joker is still on the loose and it looks like he's joined forces with Two-Face! Can anyone save us now?

THE JOKER

TWO FACE

Further assistance in their nefarious capers may come from Enviro-nutter Caroline Lucas AKA Poison Ivy

POISON IVY

While, waiting in the wings, hoping to take over The Joker's Criminal Empire

DAVID MILLIBAND

LORD MANDELSON

And most frightening of all
HARRIET HARPERSON

The way to the stars.

It is said that there is no period so remote as the recent past. I have always found that to be true, especially in regards to old British culture. The natural tendency is to misconstrue events which are not so old as to be out of memory and thus be subjected to purely objective analysis. In the case of Britain's pre-nineteen sixties achievements, this has been exacerbated by the routine sneering which has become the default position in our society.
I felt this strongly watching the wonderful old British film, the Way to the Stars, which was made in the immediate aftermath of WWII and is a beautiful meditation upon sacrifice, stoicism and heroicism, not qualities which are much in evidence these days. Everything about this film -made when my mother was in her twenties- is now completely alien to us, more so than probably the American films of the same vintage. Much of the old British slang used in it is now bearly comprehensible to us (I had difficulty understanding what Michael Redgrave was saying to start) while that used by the US pilots -mocked by the British in the film due to its novelty-is now so familiar to us that we can scarcely imagine a time when it was not so.
The attitudes, the way of speaking, in particular the clipped pronunciations, have been so mocked that it is worth remembering that those who spoke this way made a daily sacrifice to preserve this nation but if they could have seen how dimly they would be subsequently be viewed (beyond the platitudes of armistice day) and what their country would become, I wonder if they would have bothered.
The undermining of the wartime achievement began in the early 60s with that most influential of satirical reviews, Beyond the Fringe. The only surviving part of which is, appropriately enough, the aftermyth of war.
It has been correctly assessed any number of times that this new type of satire, created by privileged university wits, was caused by the deep rooted sense of inferiority felt by the post war generation towards their parents. This would have been fair enough as a correction to all the heroic myths which had sprung up is it were not for the fact that 50 years on, this sneering is now the establishment position.
The Way to the Stars should be required viewing for all would-be sneerers. Once the get beyond the fringes of pronunciation, they would see the real sacrifice that these people made.

Royal rejection

So Long Soho

The Soho theatre was once one of the better theatres in London. It was always highly politically correct, of course, but had the courtesy of providing a playwright with a detailed assessment of his work. Recently, however, it has, to use the colloquialism, completely jumped the shark.
I just received this rejection letter from the Soho after them having the script for barely one month. Now, anyone who knows anything about these things realises that no theatre will read an unsolicited script in less than three months and I've had theatres take six months to a year in the past.
In the above letter, the second paragraph in particular is instructive. They oddly describe the play as having a 1950s setting when, in fact, it is set in the 1530s. This seems more than proof that they have not read the script and barely speed read the covering letter; it appears to be a Freudian slip on their part.
Before this a lot of the usual waffle about resonance and contemporary etc. followed by a line admitting my play was all these things (and more). What could be more ever resonant than a play about individualism and the abuses of power?
I recall that the last attempted revolution in this country was led by the Duke of Monmouth. At his last stand, in Somerset, he marshalled his troops with the old hunting cry: "Soho!" He would be shocked to think that now Soho is no cry of rebellion, but of absolute conformism.