Because whatever clever things I think this article is saying might look to you, the reader, like a serving of idea-scraps accompanied by a large empty bowl of ostentatious posing on the side. Why? Because for many people, glossy magazines about contemporary art symbolize elitism and affectation much more than they do creative experimentation and freedom of thought. An essay on pretentiousness, in a glossy magazine about contemporary art how pretentious can you get? Whoever you are, I can probably guess what you’re thinking. Maybe you’re a journalist and are bowdlerizing this text for an op-ed piece in the Sunday papers about how the visual arts are a waste of taxpayers’ blah blah blah. Or perhaps you are an in-demand curator sitting in the departure lounge of a major international airport waiting for your flight to Beijing – or is it Los Angeles this week? – and have chanced upon this article whilst Googling yourself on your iPhone. You’re browsing through a rack of periodicals in the impeccably stocked bookshop of an incomparably contemporary arts institution whilst waiting for a talk to begin on cultural recuperation in the leisure industries, an anthology of writings on Belgian typography bulging from the Venice Biennale canvas bag slung over your shoulder. 'Working Class Playright' sketch, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969). That’s a full working day, lad, and don’t you forget it! - Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969) His new play opens at the National Theatre tomorrow.ĭAD Good! Good? What do you know about it? What do you know about getting up at five o’clock in t’morning to fly to Paris, back at the Old Vic for drinks at 12, sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug-addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer. KEN It’s something they use in coal-mining, father.ĭAD ‘It’s something they use in coal-mining, father.’ You’re all bloody fancy talk since you left London. KEN Oh it’s not too bad, Mum, we’re using some new tungsten carbide drills for the preliminary coal-face scouring operations.ĭAD Tungsten carbide drills! What the bloody hell’s tungsten carbide drills? MUM How are you liking it down the mine, Ken? KEN It’s just an ordinary suit, father, it’s all I’ve got apart from the overalls. Is that what they’re wearing up in Yorkshire now? MUM Of course he’s pleased to see you, Ken, he …ĭAD All right, woman, all right I’ve got a tongue in my head – I’ll do talkin’. KEN Aren’t you pleased to see me, father? MUM Oh Dad, look who’s come to see us! It’s our Ken.ĭAD Aye, and about bloody time if you ask me. The family all have Northern English accents.) Mum, wiping her hands on her apron is ushering in a young man in a suit. (Opening scene: A sitting room straight out of a D.H.
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