I sat upon the shore Fishing ...

Good morning to you all! According to Charlie, writing in the Radio 3 Forum, Laurence Olivier once said that “in a great city, or even a small city or village, a great theatre is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.” 'The Times' leads this morning with some editorial comment on awarding subsidies. 'The Thunderer' argues that the Olivier Awards last night were a reminder that London theatre not only enriches the capital’s cultural life, it also qualifies as one of Britain’s world-beating industries. Ticket sales rose to £530 million last year but that greatly understates the economic importance of the theatre, which is a big lure for high-spending tourists. Of course, no money may be made at all, but that is often beside the point. Writing 'The Waste Land' in 1922, T S Eliot concluded thus:

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At the very end of his poem, T S Eliot turns to the Fisher King himself, still on the shore fishing. The possibility of regeneration for the “arid plain” of society has been long ago discarded here in the waste land. Instead, the king will do his best to put in order what remains of his kingdom, and he will then surrender, although he still fails to understand the true significance of the coming void. The burst of allusions at the end of 'The Waste Land' can be read as either a final attempt at coherence or as a final dissolution into a world of fragments and rubbish.

The king offers some consolation: “These fragments I have shored against my ruins,” he says, suggesting that it will be possible to continue on despite the failed redemption. It will still be possible for him, and for Tom Eliot, to “fit you,” to create art in the face of madness. It is important that the last words of the poem are in a non-Western language. Although the meaning of the words themselves communicates resignation (“peace which passeth understanding”), they invoke an alternative set of paradigms to those of the Western world; they offer a glimpse into a culture and a value system new to us, Sydney Grew, and thus, offer some hope for an alternative to our own dead world.

Friends of Radio 3 (FoR3) - The Radio 3 Forum - "Culture" Minister demands arts make money before subsidisation