The generosity of the UK state is extended to all of its citizens once every five years in the form of a free ticket to the theatre performance of the state’s choosing.
In December 2019, citizens were treated to a Yuletide performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker.
Ballet is an artform that transcends language and speaks straight to one’s heart. It is a celebration of the grace and power of the human form that combines with the universal ability of music to stir the soul. Ballet can speak to all without the need for words.
The joyfully expectant audience members filed into the charming Royal Opera House to take their seats in the sweeping rows of its stalls and circles. The lucky few graced with greater favour took up their boxes. All were ready to be transfixed in wonder for the next two hours; welcoming of this gratis chance to park their lives in the cloakroom and simply savour the on-stage experience.
The Miniature Overture began to chirp from the flawless orchestra beneath the stage to whet the audience’s appetite. Those in the stalls could partially make out the players and their instruments as the conductor’s baton and the string sections’ bows danced in the soft light of their pit. Those sat higher were afforded a better view and marvelled at the audible and visual skill of the finest of musicians, before the curtain rose.
As the players reached the end of their first crescendo, the heavy, lush red stage curtains silently soared to reveal a charming winter street scene where the softly glowing windows of a pretty townhouse drew the Stahlbaum’s arriving guests.
Within the house the family and friends drew together from the sides of the stage to assemble around a magnificent Christmas tree covered top-to-bottom in beautiful, ornate, last century decorations and candles. The dancers joyfully sprang and spun about the stage, to add the last few touches to the tree. None but a few in the audience could fail to be charmed and impressed by the sumptuous costumes, lithe movements and perfect acoustics. Moments such as this made the pains of the last five years disappear, if only for a while.
“What next? Ah, yes, the children shall arrive and so the party will begin.”.
The doors of the room opened and the orchestra launched in to The March.
“Here come the children!”.
From the door entered a waddling middle-aged child dressed in a charcoal suit, light blue shirt and navy tie. A ruffled mop of bright blonde hair adorned his pumpkin-like head. He made his way towards the centre of the stage with an air of entitled confidence, but his lack of grace or poise was at total odds with the beautiful, precise dancers around him.
A few moments later, from the same door followed another child dressed in a slightly darker grey suit, white shirt and red, slim tie. Dark hair flecked with silver was mid cut in a swept back parting. Gazing out at the audience he smiled and waved as he joined the first child. They stood side by side.
The music rolled on. The dancers leapt and pirouetted around and about and past the two man-sized children who both remained still and drank in the gaze of the audience. Then simultaneously, they both reached down with their opposite hands and deftly undid their identical black belts, unfastened their trousers and dropped into a choreographed squat as The March belted out.
Both children held the pose and commenced a co-ordinated grimace in full view as The March built into its second half. The blonde child beared his teeth; the brunette pursed his lips and clenched his jaw. Their faces began to flush. Supporting dancers flurried in front and behind them, in line from side-to-side, then formed line abreast in front, blocking the children momentarily from the view of those in the stalls. Those in circle and boxes could see beyond as, with military precision, both children returned standing and almost instantly pulled up their trousers and returned to an undisturbed state.
The line of dancers, all en pointe, drew back, returning the two children to the audience, just in time for the last bar of The March. At the cymbal clashed the two children jeté backwards, and landed pointing just ahead of themselves at their personal gifts for the audience. A smattering of over-eager clapping escaped from the stalls but rapidly petered out.
The orchestra broke into the Children’s Gallop and Entry of the Parents. The audience in the stalls rose to their feet to savour the view of the children’s gifts. Gasps of wonder, amusement and curiosity began to compete with the playful music.
A fetid aroma began to waft across the pit but one could barely detect an effect amongst the players, so professional and numb were they to the constant, grinding routine. Slowly, from front row to back, people began to react in myriad ways to the smell, but none gave up their seats. The best had yet to come.
The blonde child began to cartwheel around the gifts. His awkward frame pushed out of time by his jailer’s belly. Still it was a marvel to watch and betrayed a strength in his arms and shoulders that was not obvious from his earlier dance. Landing back in his starting point beside the brunette, he pushed his companion with his right hand, as though to childishly launch his chum’s sequence.
The brunette staggered theatrically off-balance with the push. A faux look of shock then disapproval was aimed at the blonde. It was shaken off with a piroutte followed by a clownish assemblé over the gifts, as though a lack of skill could be made up for with comedy. From his mark, he dispelled the myth with an impressive sequence of temps de poisson punctuated by pas de chat that took him across the stage. He tracked back with the same movements in reverse as the audience looked on, mouths open in some degree of awe.
As though in deference to his pal, he beckoned to the blonde who clumsily bounded from behind, over the gifts to join the brunette. As the orchestra struck the last note, both children bowed smartly and froze, bent through the rapture of applause that broke out of the crowd. Those in the boxes and the side circles could make out the childish, self-congratulatory smiles. The children embraced into a ballroom stance then spun in a waltz back out of the side door as the applause gave way to Arrival of Drosselmayer.
In bounded Drosselmayer, finely dressed in black, white of face, with a tightly curled wig. Gripping what at first looked like an ornate staff but was actually a broom, he aped the children's exit by waltzing solo across the stage to loop behind the gifts.
Pointing at the blonde's offering, he looked up at the audience and raised his eyebrows in a questioning look. The audience rose again, booming cheers and rippling loud applause. Drosselmayer switched hands with the broom and repeated the mini sequence with the brunette's present. This time less cheering and quieter clapping met his ear. Drosselmayer looked down, mockingly gagged at the second parcel then pinched his nose and wafted his hand. A previously unseen jester appeared suddenly from the now stationary line of dancers behind Drosselmayer, carrying a golden dust pan and brush. He frowned and sank to his knees beside the rejected turd.
With overplayed delicacy the jester swept back and forth with his gleaming brush, smearing the mess into the pan. At the same time, Drosselmayer took a plush velvet pouch from his belt, opened it and began to gently sprinkle sparkling powder over the winning dump as the roaring crowd began to drown the orchestra.
The jester leapt back in disgrace, gagging and extending his arms to keep his pan and brush away while he span towards the dancers. They split at the centre, piling into each other as they recoiled from the jester's unwelcome and pungent approach. The line closed and he was gone.
Drosselmayer set to work about the stage while the the dancers broke into pairs and themselves variously waltzed towards the front edge of the stage and around him in close spacing. Drosselmayer began to sweep his broom over the winner’s curled and glimmering mound, smearing it over the stage. As he deftly stroked the broom back and forth he danced wider to and fro. The dancers retained perfect distance from him, narrowing their moves into the reducing unsullied space of the stage. The house had begun to reek the moment the jester had commenced his sweeping and now Drosselmayer's deft work had magnified the aroma tenfold.
The audience had joined the dance with their sympathetic gags, nose-holding and looks of revolt, but those in the rear stalls began to stir as though they would soon press forwards.
As Drosselmayer smeared the sparkling stool further and further, the dancers peeled away off the stage, each departing backwards with an in-motion bow as though there was somewhere more pressing or less pungent to be. Certainly they looked willing to sacrifice their applause. Within minutes Drosselmayer’s toil was complete, marked by the streaming of his eyes and the arrival of the first of the audience on stage via the side steps. One-by-one, the audience each became a momentary dancer of low or pathetic skill and lurched, slipped and slid from one side of the freshly greased stage to the other. Stalls first, followed by the circle. On completion of each of their ad hoc, clumsy sequences, each person stumbled down the opposite stairs and retook their seat, although some failed to make the full distance and leaped into the pit, causing commotion amidst the players who struggled to maintain undisturbed tone and tempo.
Now it was the gracious turn of those in the boxes. Smiling, they received their scented hankies from the ushers as they left their seats. From the side stage they entered in pairs, one hand delicately pinching their hankies to their faces, the other still and poised behind the smalls of their backs. Like ice skaters they slid expertly one foot at a time over the stage to take a preordained position and together formed a curved line that swept up to each side of the gigantic Christmas tree. The moment they were still, the side doors of the on-stage room burst open as the blonde man-child practically flew through them in a magnificent, arcing temps de poisson that could have been twice as high and long as that of his once friend, now vanquished nemesis. He terminated his victorious arc by landing not on feet or en pointe but smoothly to his right shin set aside so that he slid full side-body through the grease, across the stage while looking out to the seated audience and cradling his head. The move had left his suit crinkled and sullied but his expression was that of a boy who had been crowned World King.
Two thirds of the crowd errupted into a standing ovation, bawling and screaming and cheering. The remaining third wiped their hands and checked their shoes. As quickly as it arose, the plush red curtains sank back down and the orchestra thundered to a close in perfect timing.
So was decided the 2019 General Election.
What is the value of a political party's manifesto? It might express the “current values” and future ambition of the party but what does it matter?
The only way anyone can be remotely held to account against a manifesto is at the next election, by which time it will have been long forgotten and never spoken about. But to what degree do manifestos have any real significance to voters taking part in the personality contest of a general election? I would suggest very little. Rarely do people talk at any time, in any channel about what was in the manifesto.
“The least shit of two utterly shit choices” appears to be the prevailing production format for all elections in modern times. That's in respect of the shits that each party offers up. How and why is it that shit this time, and what are his or her qualifications for the job? Is there even a job spec and actual interview process for the position? If so, where can I find the turds’ CVs?
The cream cannot help but always rise up to the top, but I say, “shit floats”.
Thus spake JarvisCockstra.
In practical terms, the voting audience take seats in the theatre to be presented with an onstage selection of turds. The main parties will invariably have tried to polish each of theirs to some extent then hide the resultant smearing with a liberal sprinkling of glitter. Poorer parties who collect less bungs may use chalk dust in place of more expensive sparkles.
“A bombastic way with words and a foppish charm betray a piercing and precise political mind! Our turd takes no prisoners when it comes to Europe! He'll get Some Thing done!” says someone about Somedump. A Google quantum computer scores the statement a 7.6 out of ten on the “meaningless, unaccountable but still affecting” scale. “Some Thing” was a deliberately expansive term that could include Somedump’s other half.
“From humble beginnings to top dog in his field and Knight of the realm. Intellect, values and heart make our pongy candidate perfect for the position!”, says someone else about Plopster.
“6.3 - failed to say he'd vaguely do something while not saying what thing,”, comes the Google judgment, rendered too eloquently and naturally in the voice of a girlchild of indeterminate age.
So begins the whirlwind personality contest between Somedump & Plopster. A manufactured choice full of marketing tricks and whitewashing, and ignoring of both candidate's history. Carefully designed slogans about each party tie in to each candidate. No one cares that slogans mean nothing. To express their allegiance to others and thereby cling to a fragment of tribalistic identity, people blurt out the appropriate slogan without justification.
“I'm voting for Somedump. Oh well, I just think he'll get things done. Certainly sort out this Brexit mess.”.
“Plopster is the people's plop. And he's decent and honest. He'll clean things up, except for all those dumps lounging in the House.”.
As if the next five years depends solely upon one person. Like that's actually how government works.
The public's memory seems to cease when the election music starts. That's the effect of an invented personality contest in which a selection of human turds are kicked across the stage at them and they can express a preference for the one they wish to be forced to step in. Even creating a list of a particular turd’s provable lies and political U-turns goes either unnoticed or forgotten. “Principles”, it is now clear, are absent from excrement and also the job description of “Politician” at any level. There is a clear inverse relationship between principles and promotion in the poo-floating racket.
Once a preference has been collectively expressed, the selected ordure is then spread across the entire stage for the next five years and all players must play their parts while constantly being tainted by faeces and coping with the smell, as must the captive audience. So the show immediately recommences with the usual drama, dancing, minor spectacles, occasional scandal, dirty slips, smelly trips and a disproportionate amount of bungling farce.
The quality of the performance declines year after year. The size of the mounds grows larger in some inequitable turd-off for inexorably climbing ticket prices. The scripts, the acting, the choreography all cheaper and nastier than before, while the reek of rotting shit grows stronger and harder to bear. And everyone must buy a ticket to the daily show or they'll end up in jail. Only the 5-year ticket is “free”. Still, the audience remains glued to the kak-slicked stage and boo, bawl or cheer at the panto-like prompts and falls that leave more than custard or egg on hands and faces.
“Who writes this crap? Who picked these performers? Christ! Somedump nearly came off the trapeze! It was his mate's fault - badly timed push. Jesus! What's Somedump done now? Oh well, at least he's funny about it. Look at him flick poo on Plopster’s tie! Ha ha ha! Plopster did give him a drubbing in the house today though, Somedump deserved that. But they’ll both be back tomorrow in brown suits. We'll get through this nasty smell together. I hear they're going to spray perfume around the theatres next time.”.
The events taking place on stage are but a single aspect of what's happening in the theatre, designed to utterly distract the crowd from the real mechanics of the theatre and the world beyond.
Lights, sound, rigging, the ushers, ticket sales, maintenance. Without all that there'd be no immediate show. Who built, designed and owns the theatre? Ice cream or wine at half time?
Who did actually write the script and who is the choreographer? Director? Producer? Composer? Conductor?
As for the orchestra, one must ask where the emotive power of a performance comes from?
Is this show good because of the star or shit because of the star? What difference does the star's acting make if, overall, the play on the stage is shitter than Eastenders and more expensive?
The faces change, but the script/dance/music/policies remain the same.
The real action isn't on stage but you can bet your bottom’s cryptodollar that it all stinks.