QUESTIONS , The manager ofLiverpoolFootballClub during the I970s once said: 'Football isnota matterof life and death to me - it's more im portant than that!' Do you think his comment is
Trang 1200 21 Sport and competition
Apartfromth horsesand the dogs,th mostpopular form of
gam blingco nnec tedwithspo rtsisthe foo tball pools Every week,
morethanten million people stakea small sum on the results of Satur day 'sprofessiona lmatches Another popular type of gambling,
sterotypically formiddle-ag ed workin g class women, sbingo Nonconform ist religiou s groups (see chapte r t3) tradi tio nally frown upon gambling andtheir disappro val has had someinfluence Perhaps thisis whyBritain did nothave a national lottery until t 994
But ifpeoplewant to gamble, thenthey will.For instance, before the
nationallottery starte d , the Britishgambled £250,000o which
com pany would be given thelicencetorun i'The country's big bookmakersarewillingto offerodds on almost anything at all if asked.Who will be the next Labour party leader' Will it rain during
the Wimbledon tennis tou rnament ? Will it snow on Christmas Day?
All ofthese offer opportunitiesfor'a flutter'
QUESTIONS
, The manager ofLiverpoolFootballClub during
the I970s once said: 'Football isnota matterof
life and death to me - it's more im portant than
that!' Do you think his comment is typical of the British attitude to sport (the traditiona lone,
the modern one, bo th or neit her)?
2 Cricket '5 great draw back is t hat it canno t b e
played during orim m ediately afterrainbecause
the grass is too wet In the early I 990S it was
suggested that first-class cricketshould be playedo plasticsurfacessothat playcould
begin againas soonas the rainhadstopped
English cricket enthusiasts werehorrified by this suggestion One member of the MCC
(Marylebone CricketClub,the clubwhich partly
con trolsthesport inEngland ) comm ented, 'The man must have been dru nk when he thought of it' How do you explain this
extreme reaction?
SU G G ESTI ONS
3 In t993 RoddyDoyle, a winneroftheliterary
BookerPrize (see chapter 22)made regul ar
appearances on a television football
pro-gramme In termsof the history of football in
Britain, how was this significant? Are the
soci-olog icalassociatio nsoffootballin your country
differen t from those in Britain?
4 For about three months each year, the British spend millions of pounds betting on the results
of Austra lian football- a sport whichthe vast
majori ty have n o interest in (and no
under-standingof)!Why do you think they do this' Whatdoes it tell us about British attitudes to sportand gambling? Are the chief forms of gambling in Britain the same asthose in your
count ry ?
• Copies offootball club fanzines can be bought from Sports Pages,
Caxton Walk, 94-96 CharingCross Road, LondonWC2H OjG
Thereis a generalfootball fanzine calledWhenSaturdayCarneswh ich is
availablefromthe samea dressor from 4thFloor, 2Pear TreeCourt,
London EC I R ODS.This includesdetails of most oftheindivi dual
club fanzines available
Trang 2The arts
The art s in s o ciety
Inter estin thearts in Britain usedto belargely confinedto asm all
elite Compared with fifty years ago,far more peopletodayread
books, visitart galleri es,go to the theatre and attendconcerts
Nevertheless,th efactremainsth at most Britishpeopleprefertheir
spo rt , theirtelevision and videos ( D-Videos) ,andtheir otherfree-time
acti viti estoanything' cultural'
Theartsin Britain are metwitha mixtu reof publicapath an d
private enthus iasm Publicly, the arts are acceptedand toleratedb t
not activelyencou raged Asa proportio nofistotalexpenditure,
govern ment finan cial su p port for the artsis one of the lo w est ofany
western coun try During the I9 80 s it was the lowest of all.One of
theprincipl esofThatcherismwas thatthe artssh o uld be driven by
'm arket forces' The governmentreduced the money it gave to the
ArtsCouncil, theorgan izatio n which allocates fundsto projects in
thearts.Itwaspoliticallyacceptableto do this becau seofthewid
e-spre ad view that'cu ltu re ' isof interest toasmallsectionof therich
on ly Therefore, the government'saction was seenas democratic- it
wasrefu singtosu bsid izeth eta tes of the wealthy The coun ter
-argument , th atsuc h an attitudeis undemocratic becauseit makes
'culture' too expe nsive for theord in ary person, is not one thatcarries
muchweightin Britain I nsch o ols,su bjects suchas art and music,
thoughalwaysavailable,tendto be pushedtoth e sidelines Inthe
national curricu lum (see chapter 1+),they areth e onlytwo' core'
su bjects whichpupilsat the age of fourteenare allowed todro p
com pletely
In addi tion ,theartsare not normally given a veryhigh level of
publicity.Television program m es on'cu ltural' subjectsareusually
sh own late at night.Each su m m er, manyhigh-q u ality arts festivals
take placearoundthe country ( D-Annualortsfestivals),but he vast
majority ofpeop le donot evenknow of theirexiste nce Lon don has
some of the finestcollectionsof paintingandsculpturein th e world,
but touristbrochuresgivelttle spaceto thisaspectofth e city.Excep t
forthe mostfamous,artiststhemselveshave comparatively little
publicrecognit ion.Som e Britishartistshavein ternatio n al reputa
-tions,andyet mostpeoplein Britaindon't even knowth eir names,
Wha t ar e " t he art s'?
T he ar ts i s an 'umbrella' term for liter
-a ture, music, painting, scul pture, crafts, th eatre, o pera, ba llet, film etc.
It usually implies seriousness, so
t hat part icular exam ples of these
ac tivities w hich are regarded as ' light' may be referred [Q simply as 'e nte rtainment'Tnstead.
Art,or fi ne arts,is often used to refer
to t hose a rts which use space, but not time, for their appreciation (such as paint ing and sculpture).
T h is, for exam ple, i s what i s covere d
by the subject ' art' in schools.
The word art ist can sometimes
r efer to a p erson w orking in the fine arts, and so metimes to a person
wo rking in any field of the arts In this c hapt er , it is used in this latter sense.
What i s " c u lt ure'?
The w or d cu lture has two meanings.
I n this book, i t is used i n its anthro -pological sense to mean 'way oflife'.
B ut m any peo ple also use it as a synon ym for' t he arts' When it is used th is \vay in this chapter, it has
i nverted commas around i t.
Trang 320 2 22Thearts
V id e o s
E very year more than £1 b illio n worth of v ide os arc s o ld o r r e nted
i n Br itain Mo re t han 60% of all
h o useh olds in the cou m ry own a video cassette reco rd er Ever}' yea r.
t hese households hi re an average of about twe n ty-five vid eos each and buy an average of about five v id eos each H ere is a graph sho w i ng t he
ty pe s of vid eo th at p eople wa tched
in 1 9 9 3.
Vid e os f or sal e and r ent
% ofcurrent market
S al e
I Children's/ Disney 3
3 TV/others 22
5 Fit ness/spo rt 8
R ental
I Dramaslthrillers 37
2 Action/adve nt ure 2
4 Children/family 4
5 Science fiction 4
Anamateur theatrical producti on
It is very rare, forexample, foranyBriti shartist o us his or herfame
inthearts as sp ri ngbo ard0 1110 the politicalstage.Ifyouweretoask
theavcr age personto namesomefamouspainters.com posers opera
sin gers nd balletdancer s, you wo u ldproba blybegiven veryfew Britishnames- orevennone at all
It is lmosta iftheBritish arekeen lOpresentthemselvesa a
natio ofphilistin es And yet, hundredsof thousandsof peopleare
enthusiast icallyinvolvedinone or otherofth e arts,but (intypically
Bri tishfashion)witha more-or-Iessamate ur or pan-lime status.For
exam p le.every(Own in the cou nt ry ha atleastone'amateu r dra -matics' society , whichregularlygivesper forman cesandcha rgesn marc than enough1Ocover its os ts.Allover th ecou nt ry, tho usands
of peoplelearn handicrafts(suchas pottery)intheir ree time,and
some times sell theirwork inlo calcra ftsh ops,Similarly , there are
thousandsof musician s of everykind, performing aroundthe countryforverylittlemone yand makin gtheir own recordingsin verydifficu ltcircumstan ces Som e amateurBritish choirs suchas
the BachChoirofLon donand King's College Chap el Cho irin Ca m-bridge, are well-knownthroughou tth e world
I th ere isonech aracteristicof Britishworkin theartsthaiseems to
stan dO Ul,itisitslackofidentificatio nwith wider intellectual trends
It isno t usually ideologicall ycom m it ed no ra sociated with part icu -lar politicalmovements.Playwrightsanddirectors.for instan ce can
be left-Wingin their poli tical outlook ,butthe playswhich th ey
producerarelyconveya straight forw ard politicalmessage Thesam e
islargel ytrueof Britishno velistsandpoets.Their writng istypically
naturalistic an d isnot connectedwithparticu larintellec tual move -ments.Theytendto bein d ividualistic, explo ring emotio nsrather
Trang 4than ideas,theper son alratherthanthepoliti cal.Whatever the criics
say.itisquite com mo n forBritishplaywright sandn veliststoclaim
thatthey justrecord'w hat heysee'and thattheyd notconsciou sly
intend anysocialor symbo lic message Similarly , British work inthe
artsalso tendstobeindi vidualisticwithin its ownfield.That s.artists
d not usuallyconsiderthe mselves to belo ngto this or that 'mo
ve-ment ' Inanyfield ofthe arts,even thosein which Bri tish artists have
stro ng international rep ut atio s,itisdifficuhtoidentifya'Brius h
schoo
Thestyleof the arts lsotendstobe convent ional.Theavan t-garde
exists,ofco rse, but, with thepossibl e exceptionof painting and
sculptu re i isno t th ro ug hsuchwork thatBritishartistsbecome
famous Inthe I980s,Pet er Brook wasahighl y successful theatre
directo r.Butwhen he occasionally directedavant -gardepro d uctions
hestagedthem in Paris!
Inthese featuresof the workof British artists (lonelyindividualism
expressing uself wuhinco n ventio nal formats) i isperhapspossible
tofind an explanat ionfor theapparentcontrad iction betw een, onthe
one hand , the lowlevel ofpublic su portfor the artsand,o the other
hand, hehigh level ofenth usiasm onthepart ofind ividuals.There
appea rs tobe a gene ralassump tio n inBritain that artisticcreation is
aper sonalaffair, n tasocialone,andthatthereforethe flowertngof
artistictalen t cannotbe engineered Eitherit happen s,or it doesn't
Itisno tsomethingfo r whichso cietyshouldfeciresponsible
Th eatre and cin em a
The theatrehas lwaysbeen verystrongin Britain.Itscent re is,of
cou rse,London, whe resuccess ful plays canso metimes runwithout
a brea k fo rmany years( e-Theyran and ran!) Butevery largetownin the
cou n try has its theatr es Evensm alltow ns oftenhave'rep ertory'
theatres, whe rediffere nt playsare performedfor short period sb the
sam e groupofprofe ssionalactors (arepert ory com pany)
Itseemsthat the conve n tio nal forma tofthe theatricalplaygives
the undemonstrativeBritishpeoplea safe opportu nitytolo okbehind
the maskof accepted socialbeha viour.The co unt r y's mostsuccessful
and respected playwrigh ts re usually those whoexplore thedar ker
sid e ofthepersonalityand ofpersonalrelationships (albei often
throughcomed y)
Britishtheatre hassuchafineacting tradi tio nthatHollywo od is
foreverraid ingi stalentfor peopletostar infilms British television
do esthes m ethin g.Moreover, Broadw ay,whe n lookingfor itsnext
blockbustermusical,payscloseattentio ntoLondon productions.In
sho rt, Britishtheatreismuchadm ired.As aconseque nce, t is so
me-thingthat Britishactors are proudof Many ofthemostwell-known
television act or s, thoug h theymight makemost of theirmoneyin
this latt ermedium , cont inue to seethemselves asfirstandforem ost
theat re actors
Annualar ts festivals
There a re mao y f estivals thr ough out
B ri tain during t he yea r but the se a re perhap s t he most w ell-known.
June Ea st A nglia C lassical music Relativel y infor mal a tmo sphere.
Au gus t A ll the pe rformi ng a ns.
incl u i n g a vant -gardc M ore t han
ten d iff e rent p erform ances e very
d ar aroun d t he city Wo rld fa mou s.
T he P roms
J uly- Septem be r L ondon Classical music ' Pro m s' is s han for 'prom -enade s s o-called b ecause mo st of the seat s ar c taken out o f t he Alb en Hall, whe re th e co ncerts take pla ce, and the a udience s tands or walk s around ins tead
Glyndebourn e
A ll summer I n the g rounds ofa large
co untry house in S ussex Opera
Jul y Wa les Music, p oetry a nd da nce from m any diffe rent cou ntries
M ost l y i n t he for m of competit ions, with s pecial c ategories for Welsh
p erform ing ar t s.
Probably th e tw o m ost w
ell-e stablished r ock mu sic fe stivals T he
Bradford and C ambridge f estivals emphasize folk mu sic.
Theyra n and ran!
I n t he second h a l f of t he t wentieth
ce nt ury t he two l ongest -runn ing
theatrical produ ction s have been T he
M ousetrap ( fro m a n ovel b Agatha
Ch ristie ) and the comed y N oSt '\:
Please , we'r e Briti sh Both pla yed con -tinu ously for m ore tha n fifteen } ·ears.
Trang 52 0 4 22 The art s
Br itish films
H ere a re so me o f th e m o st success ful
and /o r r espected B ritish fi lms of th e
1 9 80 s a nd 1990S :
Chariots o f Fi re ( 198t )
G re gory's G i rl (1 98t )
Ga ndhi ('982)
A L etter toB rezhnev(t 985)
My Beautiful La underette (198 S-)
A R o o m wit h a V iew ( 19 85)
A Fi sh Called Wa nd a ( 1988)
S hirley Val entin e (1989 )
Henry V ( '989)
Th e C rying Game ( 1992)
Mu ch Ado Ab out N othing ( 993)
Four Wedding s and a Fune ral (1994)
Th e F ull Mo nty (1997)
No uing Hill ( 1999)
Som e well-known arts venues
The S hakespeare M emo rial Thea tre
in S trat f o r d i s t he hom e o f t he R o yal
Shak espeare C o m pany (RSC) A ll
t he ot he r ve nues ment io ned h ere are
i n L o ndo n.
Th eatres i nclude t he Old Vic (the
h om eof th eN ati o n a l Theat re
C ompany) th e Mermaid, th e Ro y al
Co urt and t heBarbican ( w here the
R SC a lso p erforms)
F or ope ra a nd ball et t here is t he
R oya l Op era H ous e a t Covent
Gard en a nd the Co lis eum, where t he
Sadler' s W e ll s Co m pany perf orm s.
Th e So uth B ank a rea has s everal
concert ha lls (not ably t he R o yal
Fes tival Hall ) an d the N atio nal
Th eat r e
In con tras t, t h e c inem a in Britain i s o f te n r egarded a s not quite part
o f 't he art s' a t all - it is s i mp ly ente rtainment Partl y for thi s r eason,
no financial helpto itsfilmindustry.Therefore,although cin
ema-goingisaregular habit fora muchlargern m ber of peoplethan is
theatre -going,British film directors oftenhave to go toHollywood
b ecause t he r s o urce s t h ey ne ed a re n ot available in Britain A s a
result,comparativelyfewfilms of qualityaremadein thecountry
A me r ican p r odu ct ion s o ften u se st u dios and t echnical f ac ili t ie s i n
make become highlyrespectedaround theworld ( e-Britishfilms) But
even thesefilms often make a financial loss
M u s ic
C la ssica l m u sic in Bri tain i s a mino rit y int erest Few classic al mu
public.Whenthey do,it isusuallybecauseof circumstances which
have n o thin g t o d o wi th th e ir m us ic For example, th e I t alian te nor
wasusedb the BBC to introduceits '990footballWorld Cup
coverage.Despitethislow profile,thou sand s of Britishpeopleare
dedicated musicians and manypubliclibrarieshave a well-stocked
o pera co mpanie s an d ba llet compan ie s, and al so c ertain annua l
In the I960s,Britishartistshad a greatinfluence on the develop
-ment of musicinthemod ern, or'pop'idio m.The Beatles and othe r
then ado ptedby popular musicians in theUSAand therestof the
world.Theseincluded the writingof wordsand musicb theper
-forme rs them selves,andmore activeaudienceparticipation The
wor ds oftheirsongs alsohelpedtoliberate the popidiom from its
Thelat nightoftheproms(c-Annualarts festivals)
Trang 6former limitation to the topics oflo ve and teenage affection Othe r
Britishartistsin groupssuchasPinkFloyd and Crea mplayedamajor
part in making the musicalstructureofp p musicsimilarlymore
sophisticated
Sincethe 1960 s,popular musicin Britainhasbeenanenormous
to Briti sh exports WithinBritain the totalsales of thevariouskinds
of musicalrecordingaremorethan200 million every year andthe
havecome outof Britain and British 'pop' artistshave beenactive in
Li t e ratu re
Althoug htheBritishare co m paratively uninteres ted informaledu
ca-lion, and althoughthe ywatch alo t of television, theyare nonetheless
enthusiastic readers
Many peopl ein the literar y world say tha tBritish literaturelost
its way attheend of the twentieth century.The lastBritish author
towin the No belPrizefor literat urewas Willia mGolding, in 1983
Many othersdisagr ee wih thisopinion But wha t isnot indou btis
thata lot oftheexciting new literaturewritte nin English and pub
ou tside Britain The BookerPrize is the most importantprizein Britain
for a workof ficti on StartingwithSalmanRushdie in 1981,nin e of
itsnextfourteen winnerswere writers fromformer Britishcolonies
such asCanada, India,IrelandandNigeria
Although 111anyof the best'serious'British writersman ageto be
popula ras wellasprofound, thevast majority of the b o sthat are
read in Britainc uld not be classifiedas 'serious' literature Britainis
thehome of whatmightbe called'middlebrow' literatur e.(Tha t is,
'pulp' fiction.)For example, the distinctlyBritishgenreof detectiv e
fiction(the work ofwriters lik AgathaChr istieand RuthRendell)is
regardedasentertainmentratherthanliterature- but it is entertain
-ment for intelligent readers There are many British autho rs,mostly
fem ale (forexam ple , Norah Lofts andRum merGodden) ,who write
novelswhic areso m etim es classifiedas 'romances' b t whichare
actually deeper and moreseriousthan that term often im plies They
are neither popular 'blockbusters' northesortofbooks whichare
reviewedin theserio us literarypress Andyet theycontinueto be
read,year afteryear afteryear, by hundredsofthousandsofpeople
In 1993more thanh lfof the hundredmost-borrow ed books
from Britain'spublic librarieswere romantic no els Manywere of
themiddlebrowtype.The restwere n10re simplisticstories abou t
romance (sheis yo ung andpretty,h istall , dark and handsome
T he a rts an d t el evi sio n
T here ar e now only a quarter of the number of ci ne ma s eats in B ri tain as ther e w ere i n [961) This decline i s gene rally assumed to be the result o f
th e p op ulari ty of t elevision I n fact,
te levisio n has taken an increasingly important suppor ting role i n the arts T he maki ng of some high-qua lity B ritish films has on ly been poss ible because o f the fi nanc i al
h elp of C hannel 4 T he BBC regu
-l arly com miss ions ne w w orks of music for the proms Te levision
dr ama a nd co medy hel p t o k eep
h undreds of actors i n work.
M oreover, t elevision ca n actua lly hel p to p ro m ot e oth er art forms.
W hen a b oo k is dr amatized on tele
-v ision, i ts s ales often roc ker The
m ost spectacu lar example of this occur red i n th e la te I 960s T heForsyre
Saga,a series o f n ovels by John Gals
-wo rthy ha d bee n out of pr int for
se veral decades When an ada ptation was sho wn on the B BC, hal f a mill ion copies of the boo ks w ere sol d !
M ountains of b o ok s!
F or the really schol arly reader, the
B ritish Li brary ( a department of the
B ritish Museum ) has more than 10
milli on vo lumes, occu pying320
kil om etres of shelf sp ace At present, the librar y i s ob lige d to house a co py
o f ev ery boo k pub lishe d in the
co unt ry T his obligation, ho w ever, will p ro bably disap pear i n the
f u ture It is just too difficult to
or gan ize B y [9 93, its c ollection was
e xpand ing a t he rate of (1) 0 centi
-m etre s of boo ks pe r hour I t
p ossesses more than6,000different
e ditions o f S hakespeare 's p lays a nd
m or e than 100 different editions of
m ost nove ls by Charles Dickens The
r esu lt o f all this is that i ca n take u p
to t wo da ys to fi nd a particular book!
Trang 7206 22The arts
A child could do that!
British people often complain about
modern abstract p ainting by saying,
'It doesn't look v ery specia l to m e A
c h ild of four co uld d o t ha t' We ll, in
1993 a c hild o f f our did do it.
One of the paint ings offere d to t he
Ma nchester Ac ade my of Fine A rts
for its annual exhibi tion was a work
called Rhythm of theT rees The
Acad-emy's experts liked it and included it
in the exhibition Only later did they
discover tha t its crea tor, Car ly
Johnson, was four years o ld (the
title was h er gra ndfather's i dea)
The news o f this discovery w as
greatly en joye d by t he whole of
Britain Every body loves it \ v - hcn
exper ts are made to look li ke foo ls,
especial ly w hen they are expe rts
about something that most people
don't understand It did not occur to
many people to think that perhaps a
child genius had been discovered.
Somebody else must have liked
Car lv's painting t oo - it so ld for
£291)·
Modernanatthe T ate
with avery firm jaw;whateverhappen s duringthe story, they end
up ineachother's arms - forever) TheBritishpublisher whichsells
morebooksthan anyotherisMills&Boon , whose boo ksare e
xclus-ivelyof thistype
It is more than 200 years since poetry Slopped being the normal
mod e ofliterary self-expression An dyet, poetry at the end of the
twentiethcentury issurprisingly, andincreasingly,popularin Britain
Booksof poetry sellincomparatively largenumbers.Their sales are
notnearlyaslargeas salesof novels, but theyare large enou gh fora
few small publishersto surviveen tirelyo publishingpoetry.Many
poet sareaskedtodo readin gs of theirworkon radio andat arts
festivals.Many ofthesepoets are notacade micsand their writingis
accessibletonon -spe cialists.Perhapsthe'pop' idiomandtheeasy
availability ofsound recordinghave mademorepeople com fortable
withspoke nversethentheywere fifty yearsago
Th e fin e art s
Paintingandsculptu rearenot as Widelypopularas musicisin Britain
Thereisageneral feeling thatyou have to be a specialistto appreciate
them, especially ifthey are contem pora ry.Smallprivateart galleries,
where peoplemightlookatpaintings witha viewtobuyin g them ,
are rare Nevert heless,London isaIle ofthemaincentres ofthe intern ationalc llector 's world Thetwomajor auct ion houses of
Sotheby'sandChristie'sareworld-fa mous
Un tilthe I980s, thecountry's majormuseumsand galleries
chargednothing for admission Mostofthem nowdo so,although
sometimes payment is volunt ary This has causedalot of comp laint
thata greattradition offree ed ucatio nhas been lost