V

 I need to mark the death of Leeds born poet and translator Tony Harrison, a working class boy made good who kept his radical politics his whole life. 

Let's have a few lines from his most famous poem, which are sadly still as valid today as they were in 1985:

These Vs are all the versuses of life
from LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/White
and (as I’ve known to my cost) man v. wife,
Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right,

class v. class as bitter as before,
the unending violence of US and THEM,
personified in 1984
by Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM,

Hindu/Sikh, soul/body, heart v. mind,
East/West, male/female, and the ground
these Fixtures are fought out on’s Man, resigned
to hope from his future what his past never found.

The prospects for the present aren’t too grand
when a swastika with NF (National Front)’s
sprayed on a grave, to which another hand
has added, in a reddish colour, CUNTS.

There is going to be a reading of the whole poem on October 12th at Holbeck cemetery, site of his parents' vandalised grave which prompted the writing of the poem.

Alceste moi

“My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.”

- Molière

And so to the theatre. I have been to see an all-female production of Molière’s ‘The Misanthrope’, or more properly of Tony Harrison’s early 1970s updated translation. This version further changed things so that the circle in which hypocrisy was being practised was that of modern celebrity television chefs. Not being at all familiar with those being run down behind their backs - I was straining my ears in vain for mention of Fanny Craddock or the Galloping Gourmet - I was a bit lost at times.

You can't beat a bit of Fanny

However the energy of the verse speaking swept it all along most pleasurably. There were also some well-choreographed physical interludes among the rhyming, plus yet another prop inadvertency. Less intrusive than last week’s curtain problems the Michelin inspector’s peeling false moustache nevertheless caused just as much amusement. Of the three ladies I went with one loved the play and the other two weren’t so keen; they did like the shoes though.