Burnt By The Sun, National Theatre review: bum-aching torture but don't blame Stalin

Someone should remind playwright Peter Flannery that drama is like real life but with the boring bits taken out. Last night’s preview of his adaptation of the movie Burnt By The Sun (press night tonight), broke an enjoyable run of great shows at the National Theatre which includes Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County, and Vanessa Redgrave winning me over after years of indifference in The Year of Magical Thinking.

The NT website promises us: “Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin’s rule.” Terrific! Just what I wanted to see. Unfortunately, the end product looks like the outline before it was fleshed out and turned into a proper script, a disappointment considering this was written by the author of one of the best British TV dramas ever, Our Friends In The North.

Originally a hit Russian film made in 1994, Burnt By The Sun won a raft of awards including Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (I would have seen it by now, only Certain Someone taped two episodes of Angel over the videotape lent to us by a lefty friend, not that I’m using this opportunity to remind him of his crimes or anything, oh no, not me.)

Set in 1936 as Stalin’s Great Purge is getting under way, General Kotov (Ciarån Hinds), a hero of the revolution, is a big powerful Uncle Joe-loving family man on his summer holidays in his seaside dacha. Surrounded by his beautiful wife, Maroussia (Michelle Dockery) and her eccentric family, the remains of the old society, plus female servant Mochova and little daughter, Nadia, his idyllic world is disrupted by the return of Dimitri/Mitia (Rory Kinnear), Maroussia’s childhood sweetheart.

After much dense wordage and hotchka-potchka Russophiling (I’m wondering if Russian theatre represents Brits so stereotypically), it suddenly transpires, post-interval, that Mitia has an unpleasant mission he must carry out.

The story, such as it is, didn’t start until the second half, the (very long) first half consisting of a lengthy introduction of the characters with almost zero foreshadowing of what was to come. (I’d’ve said ‘the second act’, except there wasn’t a second act: just a first act split in two by an intermission.) Everything emerges as flat exposition, very little of it through drama. No suspense or build-up to the end, just a lot of thesping around an old piano and then The Thing happens.

The old people in Maroussia’s family sit around like cyphers, reminiscing and bemoaning a world gone to the dogs. The first signs of Stalin’s Great Purge are spotted in newspaper reports of the showtrials where “confessions” are declared to be the basis of justice, not evidence. But this thread, which I was looking forward to seeing developed in the course of the play, is lost in the love-lives of one-dimensional characters for whom I cared very little.

Appealing to middle-classes everywhere, BBTS shares a nostalgia for the good old days ven ve danced and played music and sang and the house was alive with culture and Chekovian loveliness before the philistines came and took it all away, pass the vodka. You’d think this would be a chance to have a look at the contrary needs of two contending classes, especially as we may be entering our own pre-revolutionary period if Britain suffers a depression, but no. The workers and their case are nowhere to be seen. You don’t have to agree with the Russian revolution, but at least give us an idea that you understand the dynamics of it.

I don’t believe, for example, that Mochova would explain the drill of defending themselves against “imperialist” attack by poison gas in such sneery knowing terms, a neon light invitation for the audience to laugh smugly at commie paranoia. Teenage Pioneers in gasmasks are supposed to mark an absurd lack of sophistication, so unlike our own dear Boy Scouts and Home Guard. Yet this was 1936, with memories of 22 foreign armies trying to snuff out the fledgling revolution, and not long before the horrors of World War II.

Perhaps the best moment, the only one that made me laugh, was when the clash of two worlds was played out in duelling feet (a strange motif that turns up elsewhere in the show, I’ve just realised): Mitia’s tap-dance, hampered only by the actor’s huge Sideshow Bob feet, versus an olde Russian army boot-slapping routine from Kotov. Kotov won.

One of the worst moments (there were several vying for top spot) was where, in a fit of what passes for passionate jealousy in this limp production, Kotov tries to shag Maroussia al fresco and the entire audience steeled itself for the ancient British theatre tradition of “groundbreaking sex”. Ooh, how transgressive. Thankfully, he only gets as far as stripping her top half and she’s wearing a flesh coloured bra underneath. Phew! They could have put me off sex for the longest time.

Then there’s the idiot plot crammed into the dying minutes of the production, when Mochova’s admirer stumbles upon Kotov’s arrest and, in a moment to rival Tippi Hedren under avian attack thinking, “I wonder what’s in the attic?” and charging in like she didn’t know the title of the movie was The Birds, he gets what every movie moron deserves.

Ciaran Hinds as General Kotov heads a strong cast

Burnt By The Sun is almost as bad as the (award-winning) Tom Stoppard trilogy at the NT, The Coast of Utopia, for which I saved up and spent all day almost in tears with boredom but refused to let it beat me and watched every tortuous minute until the end just in case something interesting happened. It didn't. The only thing I remember about it, apart from its stupendous failure to enlighten anyone as to the attraction of Marxism, was the presence of posh anarchist Bakunin in Marx’s home, and someone dressed up as a marmalade cat, a hallucinatory image which makes the play sound way better than it was.

Why is it that our National Theatre can produce no deep insightful examination of class politics, of the Marxism that affected, not only the world, but the generation now running things? The only working-class character, Mochova, is presented as a stupid middle-aged sex-starved buffoon against the luminous beauty of the distressed gentry. The NT’s excellent production of Galileo a while back contained some mind-boggling howlers — a working-class assistant with regional accent, whose child version is played by a posh kid with a Rank starlet accent, plus other revelations of antiquated class, race and gender assumptions peculiar to the theatre producers rather than Galileo and his contemporaries. Hey, you guys running the culture, this is your era. If you can’t work out what was/is happening, who can?

As usual, the designers walk away with the honours. The BBTS set is stunning — Kotov’s dacha centre-stage on a rotating platform, surrounded by bleakly beautiful forest, hauntingly lit.

If the original film even halfway deserves its reputation, then it also deserves an infinitely better adaptation than Flannery provides here. If it doesn’t, then I may have to apologise to Certain Someone tonight while we rewatch the episode in which Angel is turned into a muppet.

Spreaking of muppets ... HOI! Otchka-trotchka-motchka HOI! Otchka-trotchka ...

UPDATE: Neil Clark runs with the baton.

I'm in a minority of one.
Michael Coveney, What's On Stage and in the Independent:
Michael Billington, Guardian:
Charles Spencer, Telegraph:
Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard
Mark Espiner just about resists full lampoonery in the Guardian

Burnt By The Sun, National Theatre review: bum-aching torture but don't blame Stalin

Someone should remind playwright Peter Flannery that drama is like real life but with the boring bits taken out. Last night’s preview of his adaptation of the movie Burnt By The Sun (press night tonight), broke an enjoyable run of great shows at the National Theatre which includes Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County, and Vanessa Redgrave winning me over after years of indifference in The Year of Magical Thinking.

The NT website promises us: “Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin’s rule.” Terrific! Just what I wanted to see. Unfortunately, the end product looks like the outline before it was fleshed out and turned into a proper script, a disappointment considering this was written by the author of one of the best British TV dramas ever, Our Friends In The North.

Originally a hit Russian film made in 1994, Burnt By The Sun won a raft of awards including Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (I would have seen it by now, only Certain Someone taped two episodes of Angel over the videotape lent to us by a lefty friend, not that I’m using this opportunity to remind him of his crimes or anything, oh no, not me.)

Set in 1936 as Stalin’s Great Purge is getting under way, General Kotov (Ciarån Hinds), a hero of the revolution, is a big powerful Uncle Joe-loving family man on his summer holidays in his seaside dacha. Surrounded by his beautiful wife, Maroussia (Michelle Dockery) and her eccentric family, the remains of the old society, plus female servant Mochova and little daughter, Nadia, his idyllic world is disrupted by the return of Dimitri/Mitia (Rory Kinnear), Maroussia’s childhood sweetheart.

After much dense wordage and hotchka-potchka Russophiling (I’m wondering if Russian theatre represents Brits so stereotypically), it suddenly transpires, post-interval, that Mitia has an unpleasant mission he must carry out.

The story, such as it is, didn’t start until the second half, the (very long) first half consisting of a lengthy introduction of the characters with almost zero foreshadowing of what was to come. (I’d’ve said ‘the second act’, except there wasn’t a second act: just a first act split in two by an intermission.) Everything emerges as flat exposition, very little of it through drama. No suspense or build-up to the end, just a lot of thesping around an old piano and then The Thing happens.

The old people in Maroussia’s family sit around like cyphers, reminiscing and bemoaning a world gone to the dogs. The first signs of Stalin’s Great Purge are spotted in newspaper reports of the showtrials where “confessions” are declared to be the basis of justice, not evidence. But this thread, which I was looking forward to seeing developed in the course of the play, is lost in the love-lives of one-dimensional characters for whom I cared very little.

Appealing to middle-classes everywhere, BBTS shares a nostalgia for the good old days ven ve danced and played music and sang and the house was alive with culture and Chekovian loveliness before the philistines came and took it all away, pass the vodka. You’d think this would be a chance to have a look at the contrary needs of two contending classes, especially as we may be entering our own pre-revolutionary period if Britain suffers a depression, but no. The workers and their case are nowhere to be seen. You don’t have to agree with the Russian revolution, but at least give us an idea that you understand the dynamics of it.

I don’t believe, for example, that Mochova would explain the drill of defending themselves against “imperialist” attack by poison gas in such sneery knowing terms, a neon light invitation for the audience to laugh smugly at commie paranoia. Teenage Pioneers in gasmasks are supposed to mark an absurd lack of sophistication, so unlike our own dear Boy Scouts and Home Guard. Yet this was 1936, with memories of 22 foreign armies trying to snuff out the fledgling revolution, and not long before the horrors of World War II.

Perhaps the best moment, the only one that made me laugh, was when the clash of two worlds was played out in duelling feet (a strange motif that turns up elsewhere in the show, I’ve just realised): Mitia’s tap-dance, hampered only by the actor’s huge Sideshow Bob feet, versus an olde Russian army boot-slapping routine from Kotov. Kotov won.

One of the worst moments (there were several vying for top spot) was where, in a fit of what passes for passionate jealousy in this limp production, Kotov tries to shag Maroussia al fresco and the entire audience steeled itself for the ancient British theatre tradition of “groundbreaking sex”. Ooh, how transgressive. Thankfully, he only gets as far as stripping her top half and she’s wearing a flesh coloured bra underneath. Phew! They could have put me off sex for the longest time.

Then there’s the idiot plot crammed into the dying minutes of the production, when Mochova’s admirer stumbles upon Kotov’s arrest and, in a moment to rival Tippi Hedren under avian attack thinking, “I wonder what’s in the attic?” and charging in like she didn’t know the title of the movie was The Birds, he gets what every movie moron deserves.

Ciaran Hinds as General Kotov heads a strong cast

Burnt By The Sun is almost as bad as the (award-winning) Tom Stoppard trilogy at the NT, The Coast of Utopia, for which I saved up and spent all day almost in tears with boredom but refused to let it beat me and watched every tortuous minute until the end just in case something interesting happened. It didn't. The only thing I remember about it, apart from its stupendous failure to enlighten anyone as to the attraction of Marxism, was the presence of posh anarchist Bakunin in Marx’s home, and someone dressed up as a marmalade cat, a hallucinatory image which makes the play sound way better than it was.

Why is it that our National Theatre can produce no deep insightful examination of class politics, of the Marxism that affected, not only the world, but the generation now running things? The only working-class character, Mochova, is presented as a stupid middle-aged sex-starved buffoon against the luminous beauty of the distressed gentry. The NT’s excellent production of Galileo a while back contained some mind-boggling howlers — a working-class assistant with regional accent, whose child version is played by a posh kid with a Rank starlet accent, plus other revelations of antiquated class, race and gender assumptions peculiar to the theatre producers rather than Galileo and his contemporaries. Hey, you guys running the culture, this is your era. If you can’t work out what was/is happening, who can?

As usual, the designers walk away with the honours. The BBTS set is stunning — Kotov’s dacha centre-stage on a rotating platform, surrounded by bleakly beautiful forest, hauntingly lit.

If the original film even halfway deserves its reputation, then it also deserves an infinitely better adaptation than Flannery provides here. If it doesn’t, then I may have to apologise to Certain Someone tonight while we rewatch the episode in which Angel is turned into a muppet.

Spreaking of muppets ... HOI! Otchka-trotchka-motchka HOI! Otchka-trotchka ...

UPDATE: Neil Clark runs with the baton.

I'm in a minority of one.
Michael Coveney, What's On Stage and in the Independent:
Michael Billington, Guardian:
Charles Spencer, Telegraph:
Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard
Mark Espiner just about resists full lampoonery in the Guardian

Battlestar Galactica Ep 6, 4.5 review: Deadlock

Cylons Sharon/Boomer Eight and Caprica Six

SPOILER ALERT Look away now.

Written by Buffy veteran Jane Espenson, Deadlock, Episode 6 of 10, brings Ellen Tigh back to Galactica’s crippled fleet, now carrying 39,556 surviving humans with no prospect of sanctuary.

Dead alcoholic Ellen was revealed in the first episode of the series to be the Mother of the 13th Cylon Tribe. Revived and tidied up in last week's episode, she had displayed the powerful side of her character when confronting Brother “Jon” Cavil (Cylon model Two) over his determination to wipe out the humans. She’s now delivered by one of the Boomers (Cylon model Eight) to the Galactica. With food running out and tempers high, the old ships aren’t the only things falling apart from wear and stress. As Gaius Baltar later observes, starving humans don’t make for a mutiny, they make a revolution.

But far from representing hope, this particular “revolution” is a venting mechanism for all the humans’ fears and frustrations and of course, the Cylon outsiders are the obvious scapegoats even though they are providing the stricken ships with superior technology to get them out of their current mess. Admiral Adama and President Roslin are at a loss what to do. It’s interesting that in this post-911 allegory, with its critique of the War on Terror, our sympathy is orientated towards the military and political leadership — representing stability, order among chaos — caught between the threat of imminent detection and obliteration by Brother Cavil’s Cylon army (al Qaeda, as some have suggested), and the humans on auto-destruct (civil unrest at home).

Despite a major personality and grooming make-over, the dipso maneater of old is still at Ellen’s core. She informs Admiral Bill Adama and his officers that Brother Cavil intends to rebuild the Resurrection Ship which recreates Cylons when they die and which our heroes had managed to destroy. But before her husband, Colonel Tigh (revealed previously as a reluctant Cylon), can tell her, “I made Caprica Six pregnant”, she’s shagging him on the table, his eyepatch and cares tossed to the stellar winds.

They've been doing this for thousands of years throughout their numerous reincarnations. So when Ellen does find out that there’s a Cylon baby on the way, instead of greeting this as an evolutionary marvel that will ensure the continuation of their species without the Resurrection ship, she gets jealous. Hmm, not so enlightened and omniscient, after all. As she reminds him and us, she and Tigh created Six all those thousands of years before. She eventually makes her peace with them.

Caprica Six yearns to be “pure and safe". Sensing danger, she and Boomer propose to the Cylons that they escape by taking the base ship. Tigh and Sam, still ill from a bullet wound to the head, oppose the move.

The tension takes its toll and Caprica Six loses the baby. With procreation no longer a viable alternative, the survival of the species will depend on the return of the Resurrection ship.

Ellen and Colonel Saul Tigh

The writers are still having fun with Gaius Baltar who is as slimy and self-preserving as ever. Providing a darkly comic commentary on the absurdities of ruddereless humanity under threat, his every selfish action is (mis)interpreted by his cult followers as being of supreme spiritual significance, reflecting life as it is and not as it should be, as well as chucking in an homage to Life of Brian.

This week Gaius has to find a way to scupper the female leader who emerged during his absence when he ran away to save himself, and whose qualities of smarts, courage and tactical thinking he recognises as a threat to his position as top dog among the airheads and losers who make up his troup of female acolytes.

Gaius rails against the Cylons, even though his phantom internal Six is back as his guiding light. He acquires superior weaponry, enabling his women to fight off a male cult that's been stealing their food, and regains his position as leader.

Elsewhere, in another reference to 911, our Cylons are sticking photos of dead loved ones and comrades onto a Ground Zero wall of rememberance on the Galactica; which is touching but separate from the ones the humans are using. Mourning is no healing process. It's one more marker in the gulf between two species who actually have so much in common.

Gaius Baltar

BSG Season 4.5 Episode 1 review: Sometimes A Great Notion
BSG Season 4.5 Episode 3 review: The Oath
List of Battlestar Galactica (reimagined series) episodes here
Screen Junkies' excellent and thorough BSG recap and flowchart!

Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

Morecambe Bay disaster poem: how charity works

Having been invited to participate in a fund-raising event commemorating the 5th anniversary of the Morecambe Bay disaster (5th February), I was going to write something about it here.

But seeing how it was derailed from its original purpose by power and money, not to mention the power of money, I've thought long and hard about the role of charity in blinding us to the issues and maintaining the status quo.

It was to be a star-studded gala full of high-rolling movers and shakers. But the idea of reading out letters from the orphaned children of the victims to an audience largely composed of the Establishment who make these rules and set the agenda, made me feel ill. After all, aren't I supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable and not the other way round? I spent a sleepless night wondering if I could stand there onstage and make the powerful feel good about themselves. Images of Malcolm McDowell in the last reel of If abounded. I decided to withdraw.

Although the charity doubled its target and the survivors' children are assured of an education until the age of 20, something the charity should rightly be proud of, the original aim of the event was to also raise awareness about unauthorised workers and so try to prevent future Morecambe Bays occurring. Human history is a history of migration. Yet while capital knows no frontiers and is allowed to go anywhere in the world in pursuit of cheap labour, labour must stay home and starve. But this perspective was dropped and the planned presswork suddenly stopped as other interests took over.

My instinct proved right when I read one of the articles put out by the wealthy acting spokesperson of the charity, a Chinese entrepreneur, in which he called for a halt to "'aspiring' illegal immigrants" leaving China; stated that Britain has zero tolerance towards economic migrants, which is a bit of an insult to the British; and telling the Chinese associations their job is to dissuade Chinese from coming here. What wasn't said is that this applies to poor Chinese. If you are rich, the world is your oyster and you can go where you like. As does the author of the article.

So I wrote this poem.

I Am Rich and You Are Poor
Lines on dead Chinese workers and their rich benefactors
February 2009

I am rich and you are poor,
I travel, you seek a foreign shore,
You have needs but I have more.
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

The world’s an oyster, a wondrous thing,
Find the pearl, make an angel sing,
To swinish herds it’s all just bling
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

I’ve news for you, I’ll beg, implore,
You aren’t walking through that door,
You figure what frontiers are for.
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

I am rich and you are skint
You slave for pennies, I made a mint
This world loves those who’re carved from flint
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

I weep for you, I sympathise
Look, tears are welling in my eyes
You’re coming here to seek the prize,
But tales of gold are pretty lies
You want to be where you’re despised?
You’ll be lucky if you’re serving fries,
Yes, me, well I have cash to buy
Whatever I want, I get to fly

Not hide in a truck, rolling in muck
Relying on luck to make a buck
Stuck in a rut with the doors all shut
Banging on gates and the ladder pulled up.
Sucked down in the sands
You ebb with the tides
White under the moon
You shine in the sea

I am rich and you are poor
Bottom of the barrel while I’m top drawer.
I will help you stay where you are
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

I am rich, you’re stony broke
I am special, you’re an anonymous bloke
We’ll only love, respect, honour, support, hold you, care for your loved ones, when you croak
Hey, let’s all give to charidee

STOP PRESS: Marina Hyde's trenchant take on charity and the Fortune Forum which proposes tax cuts for the rich to help the poor.