Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a fantastic social satire - but it is still a work of fiction

 George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of my favourite books. I devoured it on holiday in Copenhagen when I was about fifteen (surprisingly, I don't believe I've reread it since - I should do, I'm sure it's even better than I took on board as an impressionable teenager). It's also the book that got my partner, who struggles with dyslexia, to truly enjoy the art of reading - this was only four years ago, and he's now a published author of two novels so we owe a lot to George Orwell!

In addition to being a great story, it's also so incredibly accurate as a cautionary tale. If you like to discuss political and social issues within left-wing circles, it's impossible to avoid comparisons between day-to-day life in the United Kingdom in 2023 to day-to-day life in Airstrip One, Oceania. There are memes shared around frequently with messages like 'Someone tell the Tories Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four as a warning, not as a fucking instruction manual!' And they have a point. Be it discouragement of independent thought, the invention of a perpetual enemy, the increasing merging of words making it harder to express original thoughts or the boundaries between truth and fiction becoming more and more blurred, a lot of the stimuli we experience around us does resemble in ever-more disturbing ways the world that Orwell was warning us about. However, I feel that in some ways, Orwell's work is interpreted a little too literally, and with negative effects.

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with someone in the comments thread on the Facebook page of my favourite blogger, Tom Clark of Another Angry Voice (which is really worth reading, anyone who doesn't already). The conversation involved the fact that multiple MPs, many of whom are very decent such as Caroline Lucas and Mhairi Black, have decided to step down at the next election. The discussion moved on to how toxic the Westminster system is and how anyone who goes in genuinely wanting to help people finds themselves driven out by the cruel, bullying public school boys' club. Someone gave Jeremy Corbyn as an example of this. I pointed out that he hasn't announced that he's still there and hasn't been destroyed. They argued that his movement and transformative agenda has. I said that if that had been destroyed, the Labour Party wouldn't still be panicking so much about trying to crush it.

Someone in that conversation responded by saying that Jeremy Corbyn has become our Emmanuel Goldstein, and went on to write the following:

'The new grass roots movement Corbyn helped create has been destroyed utterly, ploughed into the grown and sown with salt. There's nothing left now. The left are finished in this country, those few of us who remain are like the last few dazed, lumbering dinosaurs stumbling around after the asteroid impact. It's their world now - the far right fascists, swindlers, crooks and robber barons, racists, boot boys, bigots, gammons, Daily Mail fodder, Incel shitheads. The future belongs to them, we are the dead. They never will be better. We're done for, it's over, welcome to hell. The end.'

Now, irrespective of how disillusioned one is with modern politics (and let's face it, there's A LOT to be disillusioned about) I don't think that's a very healthy attitude to have. I also don't think it's an attitude George Orwell would have approved of, although obviously I don't know for sure. If he had believed in this, though, I wouldn't see why he put so much time and energy into writing an amazing book about it all.

This encounter made me think of all the Orwell references I come across, day-by-day, week-by-week... and I came to realise that a lot of them, even if they're sincere and intelligent, are actually really not very productive. They're used not to improve the future, but just to bemoan the situation we're currently in. They're utterly devoid of hope, or of any action we can take to try to improve things for ourselves. I don't believe that's what the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is for.

Let's get a few things very clear. Number one, George Orwell may have been remarkably prescient in seeing where society was going, but he did not have access to a time machine. The reason he was able to predict things so accurately was because he wasn't really writing about the future, he was writing about what was at the time the present. He could see how callous, dictatorial and frightening our way of living was (curiously enough, during the very decade when we got the NHS and great social reform) and all he did in Nineteen Eighty-Four was follow things to their extreme logical conclusion. It's depressing that so far we haven't got off that track yet - but that doesn't mean we couldn't have done.

Secondly, I feel that people look at Orwell's work as though it's an inevitable, unavoidable part of what it means to be a human being living amongst other human beings. It is not. The outcome of a book is fixed - no matter how many times you read it, the ending remains the same. Winston and Julia's journey was futile to begin with, because the author decided it was. But we are not characters in a book, we are real people with control over our destiny. It doesn't have to be like this. We can create a society that isn't like the one Orwell warned us about. There are truly fair societies in the world (normally the ones capitalism hasn't touched yet) and it is a deliberate political choice not to adopt the same principles in our own. It is possible to break down the racist, sexist, ablest, classist, capitalist power structures defining our world, and start again in a way that is more caring to one another and to our environment.

Will we do that? I don't know. Like George Orwell and everyone else, I am incapable of truly predicting the future. Like George Orwell, I could hazard an educated guess by following our current social trends to their extreme conclusion - but I think I will not do that, both because the answer would be very depressing and also because I don't think it would be productive. But I feel secure in the knowledge that changing the way we live is possible. Not only is it possible, it is essential.

Read George Orwell's work, because it's amazing, and take it for what it was meant to be. Use it in the way you act, to make sure that we aren't living lives like those experienced by his characters. But do not take it and internalise that we have a fixed destiny that we can do nothing about. Life is WAY too fluid for that shit.

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Why it's okay to feel sad about the Titan Five

 Over the last week, the tragic case of the Titan submersible disappearance has dominated headlines. For several days, there was a worldwide rush to trace and save the five people on board before the oxygen ran out - but ultimately, it was demonstrated that a failure of the pressure hull had caused an implosion, killing the occupants instantly.

If, like me, you move in left-wing circles, you'll almost certainly have witnessed comparisons being made to the amount of coverage that refugee boats get - in particular, this extremely disturbing instance, which happened just a couple of weeks before and vanished from news coverage pretty much instantaneously. The argument is made that it's disgusting that a group of people who were foolish enough to pay a lot of money to visit the wreck of the Titanic get this amount of media coverage when people fleeing for their lives get practically zero sympathy, and certainly nothing like the level of public attention and resources. I think this is an important point, and I have shared a post to this effect on my own social media profile.

However, as valid a concern as this is, I also think there's an extent to which it can go too far. I've been quite upset by some of the posts I've seen essentially suggesting that in the circumstances it would have been all right to just ignore the submersible and forget about its occupants. After all, they're only billionaires, right?

There have been some interesting articles written about why this particular case has struck such public interest - here's one such article which I thought made for interesting reading. I have my own take on the reasons why this particular case was felt to be so deserving of media interest:

1. The social status of the people involved

The hardest thing about calling out people who make this point that billionaires might as well drown is that I do think they're half right - if not a little more than half. The ultimate reason that refugees don't get the same level of media and public attention is because they are seen in our culture at the moment as almost sub-human. Our Government has an attitude towards the most vulnerable that is in my view nothing short of sociopathic, and just on an anecdotal level, when I've been discussing these matters with strangers on the internet, I've found myself quite genuinely shocked at how callous people can be. Within the last month, I've actually debated with someone who thought that people would risk their own and their children's lives aboard dangerous boats purely out of greed, without any fear whatsoever of what could await them if they stay in their home countries. Needless to say, almost no one would do that. It's hard to debate someone who is that far removed from reality, but I did my best.

Billionaires, on the other hand, tend to have a combination of two of the most toxic things within society; cruelty and stupidity. Cruelty because it's almost impossible to earn that amount of money honestly and ethically (it's so much more than a million that the human mind can't even really fathom the difference). Even if, theoretically, someone did, I don't believe it's possible to be a good person and still keep your billionaire status. I often wish I could do more to help the people who are struggling most, and the only reason I don't is that I just don't have enough money. If I had that much, enough to give huge amounts away and still be comfortably off, of course I would do it - I wouldn't even have to think about it. If you don't, with the amount of suffering around you, that is the definition of cruelty. And stupidity because it's my belief that insane amounts of power and wealth cause one to believe that one is invincible. There are examples of this all over the world, but in this case it manifests itself in the fact that five people paid more money than most of us could hope to earn in a lifetime to board a submersible that it was on record was unsafe. It's so well-documented how unsafe this vessel was, how many corners had been cut, that I don't think I even need to bother sourcing this fact; I think almost everyone will have seen the video of OceanGate's executive admitting this. Actually, not even admitting; boasting would be a more accurate term.

Ultimately, some very rich people decided to chance their luck. I feel sad for them, but the decision was idiotic (arguably far more idiotic than boarding a refugee ship actually - at least people who do that are making a choice between that or a potentially worse fate).

2. The history with the Titanic

I won't go into this one in much detail because it's detailed in the Guardian article I linked above, but I think the irony is part of it. The story of the ill-fated Titanic has captured public interest for more than a century now. The definition of the word 'titanic', originally referring to something of exceptional strength and power, is now commonly used to refer to something utterly doomed. The James Cameron film Titanic, which came out in 1997, is one of the most popular films of all-time, and I think there's something about that disaster that has stuck in public consciousness when comparable ones haven't. There's something strangely romantic about a submersible named after it and inspired by it suffering a similar fate.

3. The coziness of human interest stories

This is another thing discussed in the Guardian article, but stories about people in desperate situations always capture the public mood, from the Chilean miners in 2010 to the Thai footballers in 2018. I think this is a particular phenomenon that has accompanied the rise of the Internet. This medium lends itself to stories which people can desperately seeking updates on every few hours, and the corporate media has latched onto this to milk them for all they are worth. That sounds very cynical, but I suppose there's a good aspect to it as well - at least public pressure means that there's an incentive to carry on looking for and potentially rescuing someone.

4. Our own capacity for empathy and grief

The human brain is an amazing thing, but it's not infallible. Just as it's impossible to mentally calculate how much more a billion is than a million, it's also very difficult to find great emotion for a huge number of people at once. Imagine you hear about a house that's burned down, claiming the lives of the family inside. Even if you don't know them, you'll feel tremendous sorrow for that family. But if you hear about wildfires tearing through a country, having this impact on multiple families, you won't feel sorrow on quite the same level. You'll be upset, sure, and you'll know logically that this has a far worse impact than an isolated incident - but logic doesn't match up to your emotional reaction. This is because there's just too much suffering in the world for us to feel something for every single bit.

In a lot of ways, this is perfectly logical and reasonable. The plain truth is that if we felt a personal loss for every needless death or piece of suffering in the world, we'd drive ourselves insane with grief and be unable to live as our best selves. However, it does mean that in situations like this, it becomes extremely hard to keep track of what's really important. It's so much easier to feel sad for five people that you didn't know than for hundreds - even if the lives of those hundreds are far closer to your own than the lives of the five. It is normal and natural for us to have this reaction.

And yet...

In spite of what I've said about about our capacity for empathy, the public interest in the Titan submersible and in refugee ships has been manipulated artificially. It is deliberate that refugee ships are presented in a parasitical way, as they are. I do not believe that human behaviour is inherently and organically hostile and xenophobic. When news first broke of the war in Ukraine, so many people were quick to donate their time, money and resources to those affected, even going as far as to open their homes. I think a big part of why we've survived for so long as a species is our capacity to display empathy like that. However, the powerful have also perfected the art of using this against us; making us believe that our ability to care for one another is actually to our detriment, and they are, unfortunately, increasingly successful at that.

There's an infographic that is commonly shared around social media involving ants. It's said that if you put red and black ants in a jar together, they will live quite harmoniously with one another until someone shakes the jar, at which point they will each identify one another as a threat and begin attacking each other. I don't have enough knowledge of ant behaviour to know whether this is literally true, but it works as a great metaphor for human beings. The question is, who is shaking the jar?

Nevertheless, I think it's important to recognise that the Titan Five were human beings, with the capacity for love and fear and all human emotion. It's important to recognise that they had loved ones just like us. I despise billionaires; I think they're absolute parasites who take and take and take from the world and put almost nothing back. That combined the amount of unnecessary sea deaths that are being deliberately inflicted on vulnerable people, I understand entirely that there's something savagely refreshing about it happening to the super-rich for a change. But I can't participate in this.

The reason I can't participate is that to me, this goes against everything I stand for, every aspect of my being that caused me to realise I'm left-wing in the first place. In my view, this is the fundamental difference between the left and the right - that the right look for scapegoats to justify their cruelty, and the left have to care for one another extra hard to make up for it. The cruelty and savagery of the far-right's behaviour towards the vulnerable, be they refugees, transgender people, the disabled or anyone other group who is unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, comes from a willingness to forget another person's personhood. This is the justification for any and all forms of institutional cruelty, and I will not accept it - no matter who is the victim, and no matter who is the perpetrator.

The position that no matter who we are, we all deserve dignity and we all deserve recognition is an absolute, unqualified, unshakeable principle. I do not feel that any of the money spent trying to find the Titan Five was a waste - all I would say is that that amount of money should be spent finding everyone who's lost at sea (or, even better, making sure they aren't in that situation in the first place). It's possible to do that, and if it's possible there is no justification for not doing so. In the meantime, I will allow myself to feel sad for five people who lost their lives in a terrible accident. They didn't deserve that.

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So what does 'God Save the King' actually mean anyway?

 With the death of Elizabeth II and the ascension of Charles III, this is a phrase we're hearing increasingly, from all types of people. You hear it from ardent royalists. You hear it from ardent ANTI-royalists, changing it to phrases like 'God Save the Hungry' (such as the wonderful singer-songwriter Grace Petrie, whose song I will link below). It's the name of our national anthem and is almost a motto of the United Kingdom (the actual motto is 'Dieu et mon droit' which means 'God and my right', but I didn't realise that until I checked for the purposes of writing this blog! And that by itself refers essentially to a monarch's God-given right to rule.)

But very rarely does anyone question what the phrase means, since I doubt anyone imagines that our monarch has such a poor quality of life that we have to ask God to save him. The phrase is exceptionally old (older than the song) and is referenced numerous times within the King James Bible. I was curious, so I looked it up, and I found this fascinating explanation on Quora, from someone called Ernest W. Adams:

'This is an old-fashioned usage of the word save, when it meant preserve and protect. “God save the Queen” means, “May God protect the Queen.”

In ancient times, everyone was afraid of what might happen when the sovereign died. At the least, it meant a new monarch who would have a new coronation that had to be paid for. It might mean new taxes. The new king (they were mostly men) might be incompetent, a spendthrift, or a warmonger. Worst of all, the death of a king might trigger a civil war between rival claimants for the throne. In such wars, the common people always suffered the most.

Therefore, people devoutly hoped for long life and good health for the king.'

Now, to be clear, I found this on Quora. I cannot vouch for its veracity, and I do not know who Ernest W. Adams is, or what his source for this fact was. But I think this explanation is very plausible, so for the purposes of argument let's assume that this is correct.

If so, the phrase doesn't call for God to save the King, aside from in a roundabout sense. What it calls for is for God to save the common person. It's a plea for everyone to live in peace, to not have to worry about additional financial, religious or conflict-driven burdens. Although it may not seem it, it's essentially an ancient times equivalent of a call to socialism. It may use the monarchy as an example, but at the time, when monarchs actually had some power, it's easy to see how a relatively stable one provides more comfort than the mysterious idea of what might come next.

And once you've considered that, it just becomes impossible to look at what that phrase is used to mean today and not feel slightly sick. It is definitely not a cry for social stability anymore. It's a cry for the opposite - a demand from the wealthy to keep the ordinary people in their place. The monarchy may be a bit more of a ceremonial role now and most people having slightly higher standards of life than they did in ancient times - but in other ways, things have got worse. The world is more corporate-driven than ever. We're facing a climate emergency in large part because of how corporate-driven the world is. And the price of monarchs having less power than they once did is that it doesn't really matter very much who the monarch is; the world carries on as normal, and it carries on badly, without much hope of improvement. In the olden days, the phrase 'God Save the King' meant a wish from the poor to carry on with the status quo out of genuine fear of what might replace it; it has now become a wish from the wealthy to perpetuate the status quo out of utter contempt for anyone trying to improve their quality of life.

Prior to today's coronation, the previous one was 70 years ago, in 1953. Although I generally hold the same opinion about the monarchy irrespective of the time period, it's somewhat easier to understand the role of that one in society. In the 1950s, you can see how 26-year-old Elizabeth II could be seen as something of a figurehead. It was less than a decade after the Second World War, we'd founded the welfare state and the NHS and I think generally, things were on the up. In the circumstances, a new young Queen could be seen as an opportunity for the country to come together and celebrate. That mood is not even about her really; it's about a collective optimism for a country to experience together.

Fast forward to 2023, it's not like that anymore. We have more people living on the streets than we've had in decades. Fascism is taking hold in the UK (anti-monarchists were arrested today despite not committing any crime, in a shocking attack on freedom to peacefully protest). We have a Government hell-bent on destroying our human rights. We have children who can't afford to eat. We have an opposition who barely wants to do anything to improve this system (I haven't even started on the local election results - maybe that will be the subject of a different blog, we'll see.) I find myself very stressed out about my finances a lot of the time, and I'm a person fortunate enough not to be in any immediate danger. In these circumstances, a 74-year-old man with a net worth of around $2 billion in a gold carriage is not something to celebrate (and certainly not something the taxpayer should be funding).

In 2023, we should be beyond the point where people have a right to rule purely because of their birth. But I actually think this coronation is about more than that. It's another extension of capitalism and corporatism. In my local Tesco's, there's a big sign - 'Celebrate the King's coronation!' So, in plain English, 'Buy more food than you normally would, even though the prices have gone up and you're earning less, to pay tribute to this man who has a lot more money than you.' That is the mentality of this country. And it saddens me that so many people think it's worth going along with this. Because believe you me, King Charles does not care about you. I don't actually believe he even has the emotional capacity to care about you. It's not his fault - he's been too heavily indoctrinated into the mentality of believing in these God-given rights. I actually feel sorry for him and the other Royals to some extent - but not as sorry as I feel for someone who has to choose between heating or eating (or doesn't have the power to even make that choice in the first place).

It doesn't have to be like this. We have the resources and the money to create a decent quality of life for everyone. It's just my opinion, but I think a lot of the time these celebrations are an attempt to forget how difficult all our lives are - to throw ourselves into believing that there's this wonderful wise family that are doing everything to bring us all together. Well, I don't feel brought together. I feel cheated and I feel angry. I was brought up to believe that no one is better than me and that I am not better than anyone else, and I hold that view dear. It's an important view to hold, if we're going to find any value in this old life.

Remember that song I told you I'd link you to? Here it is down below. I really recommend Grace Petrie's songs, she's a breath of fresh air in this cruel world. Enjoy!

And by the way - Prince Andrew still hasn't faced any charges.

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Why I, as an LGBTQ+ actor/writer/producer, truly resent the idea that straight actors shouldn't play LGBTQ+ parts

This week, I had the utterly horrible experience of accusing a good friend of mine of homophobia. This person is someone I haven't known that long, but whom I have worked quite closely with over the last year and whom I value and respect.

I also knew that they didn't mean to be homophobic, which makes it a lot harder to call someone out. I think most people with a protected characteristic have had the experience of having to say to someone, 'I still like you, you're still my friend, but what you just said was bang out of order and I'd like an apology.' It doesn't get easier with time.

But this time it was even more difficult than that, both for me and for them. Because not only did they not mean to be homophobic, but they were actively trying not to be. This person had listened to what LGBTQ+ friends had said to them, and had made a decision specifically in the interests of not coming across as homophobic - and then ended up on the wrong end of a homophobia accusation because of that decision. This conversation was in relation to an upcoming stage play that my partner and I had offered them a part in, and about whether they, as a heterosexual person, could play the role of a character who has a relationship with someone of the same sex as themselves.

This is currently quite a contentious issue within the world of casting, as discussed at length in this video and also in this one. My friend's argument involved an assertion that they would not be able to find honesty and relatability with this character without being in a sexual minority themselves - but I didn't really have the impression that they truly believed this, and I still don't. It's my opinion that they had listened to so many strong voices, many from within the LGBTQ+ community itself, saying that it's offensive for a straight actor to take on the part of an LGBTQ+ character that they felt they had no choice but to turn down the part. It was this aspect - knowing that deep down they could see that what they were saying was wrong - that made me so uncomfortable when calling this out. It was a really upsetting conversation, both for me and my friend - but I absolutely and unequivocally stand by the way I handled it. Because no matter where it comes from, segregating actors and their characters into sexual categories in this way causes great harm to LGBTQ+ creatives and LGBTQ+ representation in stories, and here is why.

As an actor, I've never discussed my sexual orientation in the workplace - not because I was in the closet, but because it's an aspect of my private life that never felt relevant. I have actually been known to write 'Mind your own business' on diversity questions! As it happens, these days everyone knows I'm not heterosexual because I collaborate on nearly all my projects with my same-sex partner - my sexual orientation has come to public knowledge in an organic and inoffensive way, without me either publicly coming out or anyone outing me against my will. But I'd be furious if I ever thought that my sexual orientation had had any effect whatsoever on my chances of getting a part - even if it actually made it more likely for me to be cast. I'm no one's poster child. I'm a professional actor, and the years I've spent honing my craft are more important than a benign variation in how my hypothalamus works, which is something I was born with and have no control over. It is offensive to suggest otherwise.

I've heard it suggested by quite a few people that a heterosexual actor won't be able to identify with the process of coming to terms with one's sexuality, which is important for the actor to know. I have a question to ask in response to that point: if you'd written a story about a character dealing with the aftermath of having been raped, would you, for the sake of authenticity, specifically look for an actor who actually has been raped and can identify with that character's emotional journey? I don't think anyone would feel comfortable asking an actor that or putting it on an audition call, quite rightly so. It's a completely inappropriate, personal, potentially traumatic thing to expect someone to discuss within their work (unless they themselves decide to, as with Michaela Coel and I May Destroy You, but that's a separate matter).

So if you wouldn't think that's a requirement to have in real life in order to play a role, why is it with sexual orientation? What is so fundamentally unique about LGBTQ+ people that it's presumed that cishet people are unable to identify with their journeys? Acting is not just about pretending to be something you're not. It requires great research and empathy, and because of this I think it's important that actors should play characters who have struggles that they themselves have never had; it forces you to really put yourself in that position, feel your character's emotions and understand where they are, and that can have a positive impact on how you treat people.

I speak from personal experience here; I believe that I myself am a far kinder and more caring person as a result of having acted these parts. In 2012, when I was 19, I was in a play with Bristol Old Vic Young Company where I played a teenage boy from Norway. My character was based on a photo of a young man who looked a bit like me, and who had been tragically killed in the Norway massacre the previous year. I don't think I've ever had such an intense acting role as that. I don't even know that boy's name, but I was acutely aware of the fact that I was playing an actual person of about my age who once existed, who had similar political values to me and would never have had any concept of the fact that one day someone in a different country would play him onstage. The amount of responsibility on my shoulders to give a sensitive portrayal was indescribable. The result of that is that I feel extremely emotional, on a raw and genuine level, about that terrorist attack. The sorrow I feel about it is almost akin to having known someone who died there, to the extent that I asked if I could keep the photograph of that boy afterwards. I still have it, and I sometimes take a moment to look at it and reflect. I think this has caused me to have far more empathy for people who have lost loved ones to terrorist attacks, which is a really beneficial thing for my character and for society at large. I'd recommend acting to anyone for the same reason. And it's why I'd say to any cishet actor, 'Okay, you don't understand this person's journey, you've never gone through it yourself. Would you like to learn what it feels like?'

Another problem with this 'Authentic LGBTQ+ actors can truly understand this character's journey' thing is that we aren't all on the same journey. We may overlap with each other, but we've all had completely different experiences from one another. My story is not interchangeable with the story of another LGBTQ+ person, just as straight people aren't interchangeable with one another either. If I were playing an LGBTQ+ character, I wouldn't say that I necessarily identify with their journey more than I would if I were playing a straight character. Besides which, I have found that some productions that have prided themselves on casting LGBTQ+ actors have actually featured some of the worst and most homophobic stereotypes I've ever seen. I'm thinking particularly of the Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which dealt with the lives of a group of gay men in London in the 1980s and how their lives were destroyed by the AIDS epidemic. I enjoyed that programme, and there were some scenes I found very poignant and upsetting. However, I found them poignant and upsetting mainly because this was a real thing that happened to our community not so very long ago, and this would have happened to people I knew had I been born slightly earlier. None of the poignancy came from me feeling much of a connection with any of the characters. We've all heard of the Bechdel Test (a test of female representation on film, which is passed if there is any scene where two named female characters talk to one another about any subject that isn't 'men'); however, it occurred to me when watching It's A Sin that we really need a similar test for LGBTQ+ representation. At no point in that programme did I observe any scene where two named LGBTQ+ characters talked to one another about anything that wasn't connected to their sexual orientation. Homosexuality was their defining characteristic. The only discernible difference between any of the main characters was that one boy was a bit more introverted when all the others were loud, extroverted and promiscuous - and even that one difference only seemed to be in there for the shock value when the introverted one was the first to die. Every single time any of the characters was near a male of a similar age, they were shown to be checking him out; if heterosexual male characters were constantly shown doing this to females it would be considered sexist, but for some reason showing gay people doing it is considered okay. Well, it's not okay; it perpetuates a long-discredited idea that we'll shag anything that moves, and I'm offended that in 2021 a mainstream drama did that. What's the point of pretending to be progressive and hiring LGBTQ+ actors to play these characters if they're going to be depicted like that?

The videos I linked at the start make some valid points about the inherent homophobia in the creation of Hollywood films (and there is a heck of a lot of homophobia in Hollywood). However, they've missed a crucial point. Nearly every instance they bring up is of actors who are extremely highly-paid and very famous. Actually, most actors are quite poor and less than 2% of us are famous. I don't really think the super-wealthy variety of actors really count in this discussion, both because they're in the extreme minority and because ultimately it doesn't really affect them in the same way it affects the rest of us. One of the videos mentions that no openly LGBTQ+ actor has ever won an Academy Award for a portrayal of an LGBTQ+ character. Okay - but what if one did? Who would that actor be? Would they be someone who finds it difficult to get parts, who worries about paying the rent, who has to negotiate auditions around their job as a cleaner at Tesco because they can't earn a living from acting? Of course not. It will be someone immensely privileged, someone who is used to whispering in important ears and being approached directly for big film roles. These people, even if they do happen to be LGBTQ+, are not the kinds of people social campaigns are designed to help. They are the establishment, they perpetuate the status quo. I highly commend an actor like Elliot Page for using his position to come out and try to make things easier for transgender youth - but it's very important to remember that the stakes weren't that high for him. He has a net worth of $8 million. Even if he never got an acting job again after coming out (which is unlikely anyway), he has the capacity to live out the rest of his life in comfort. The people I'm talking about are normal actors - people who live from one pay cheque to another, who might even have to turn down jobs because they can't get time off from their day jobs. And these people, one of which I am, have a right to be able to practise their craft without their personal identities even coming into it. I didn't ask the man who came to service my boiler about his sexual orientation or gender identity, and I don't want to know it about an actor. It's none of my business, either as a viewer or as a casting director.

You may ask, are there any protected characteristics that are exceptions to this? And the answer is, yes there are. I would never approve of blackface, and I doubt we even need a debate on that. I also would look for a character with a visible physical disability to be played by an actor who has one. But there's a specific reason for that. An actor with a visible disability can't easily play a character who doesn't have one; with already having that considerable disadvantage, it's only fair that those actors have the small number of roles they can play reserved for them. But still, it depends on the medium; I'm not sure I'd be so strict if I was casting something for the radio, because if it's just voices a disabled actor can easily play an able-bodied character, so it doesn't matter if it's the other way around as well (in The Archers on Radio 4, there's a blind actor who plays a sighted character; I think that's one of the best pieces of disabled casting around, and very few people even know about it).

And whilst we're on the subject of voice acting, The Simpsons recently realised that in the first thirty or so years of the programme, they'd rarely had any regular voice actors of colour, despite having plenty of dark-skinned characters voiced by white actors. I think that's a serious problem, and I'd have solved it by bringing in a dark-skinned actor to voice a Caucasian character. This would have said, 'Voice work is the acting world's great equaliser. It's the only room in the building where no one cares what you look like, how old you are or what sex you are. All that matters is if you can make this cartoon character come to life - look, here's a 65-year-old woman who's been doing that to a 10-year-old boy for thirty years'. But this isn't how they dealt with it. They dealt with it by recasting all the dark-skinned characters to be voiced by dark-skinned actors. This said something very different - it said, 'We've waited until now, the moment it's politically convenient, to bring in some dark-skinned actors, but we'll only allow them to play characters that are dark-skinned. Never mind that that's never been a consideration for any of the white people who've done it in the past.' Be honest with yourself - does that really sound progressive?

I've avoided directly discussing transgender portrayals up until this point, mainly because as a cisgender person it doesn't really affect me - but I think I have to discuss it, because it does tie in. Some people would argue that this is one of those exceptions, like blackface or disability. And I understand that argument, but I have a counterpoint. I did once, a long time ago, ask someone auditioning for a role if they were transgender (being more likely to give them the role if they were). That person was offended, told me I shouldn't have asked them that and declined the role. I've thought a lot about this since, and I've come to the conclusion that they were right. It was completely unacceptable for me to bring that up, I have often felt very guilty about that and I've never put someone in that position again. And I think this is important actually - trans actors and cis actors each have a right to be treated exactly as they come, to be called by the name and pronouns they wish to be called by, without the casting director even knowing if they're trans or cis. Anyone can come into my audition room; I will never ask them about that, and if they choose to tell me it won't affect the likelihood of them getting a part.

As a trans rights activist, I've heard a lot of criticism of cisgender Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of trans woman Lili Elbe in the film The Danish Girl; but very rarely have I heard any criticism of cisgender Julie Hesmondhalgh's portrayal of trans woman Hayley Cropper in the soap Coronation Street. So the question we need to ask is, why is Lili's portrayal so condemned, when Hayley's isn't? I've given the matter a lot of thought, and I've narrowed it down to three possible reasons:

1) It could just be that the scripts and acting in Coronation Street were better and more sensitive than in The Danish Girl (I haven't actually seen either, so I can't comment on that).

2) It could be that The Danish Girl is more recent (I think this is part of the reason, but I doubt it's a very big part because it only came out a year after Hayley's final appearance in Coronation Street).

3) It seems to be that there is a big difference between these two castings, which most likely provides the answer to the question. There is a problem with an actor like Eddie Redmayne playing a trans woman; and the problem is not that he's cisgender, it's that he's a man. Casting a man to play a trans woman supports a deeply offensive and inaccurate perception that trans women are just men pretending to be women (and casting a trans man to play a trans woman would be offensive for the same reason). But casting a cisgender woman to play a trans woman doesn't do that. It actually says the opposite - it says that trans women are women just as legitimately as cis women are, and to the degree that they can play one another interchangeably. In my opinion, that is an incredibly powerful statement, one that really helps us take a step forward in demanding absolute equality for transgender people, and I applaud the producers of Coronation Street, and the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh, for making it - especially as far back as 1998. That is the kind of equality the LGBTQ+ community needs, the kind that we've been asking for for decades.

I would have called the Coronation Street casting decision 'ahead of its time'; but I don't think I can do that. Because I think these days, any production with a transgender lead character would expect the actor to reveal to the casting team, and to the general public, their gender identity - in spite of the fact that they may not feel comfortable talking about it and they are under absolutely no legal or moral obligation to do so. And the thing that I think is extremely important to note here is that this trend has not come about to protect anyone vulnerable minority person. It's come about because at the moment, diversity is fashionable. I'm all in favour of diversity, I think it's a really wonderful thing; but just as equally, we deserve better than to be pointed at by big-shot producers and directors who want to demonstrate how diverse and trendy their casts are. Many of these people were already important figures in the industry when homophobia and transphobia were even worse than they are now, and they didn't do anything about it then. I don't believe they care any more about our wellbeing now than they did before; it just so happens that right at this moment, finding spaces for us happens to suit them. And in doing that, they are separating us further from the population at large - making out that we are fundamentally different kinds of performers. Having done that, and created that perception about us in the mind of the public, what will happen in a few years' time when it's no longer in fashion? I fear it will make it easier again to discriminate against us.

Homophobia and transphobia are fluid things, and people who display these behaviours are not inherently horrible people. The overwhelming majority of people believe that they aren't prejudiced, and yet we still live in a society that very much is. So I'm still friends with the person I had that conversation with, and I have no hatred or personal dislike of anyone who says problematic things; I recognise that they're doing their best. But the fact remains that separating LGBTQ+ people into separate categories, even in the interests of wanting to help them, is not treating us the same us cishet people. That is what homophobia and transphobia are; it doesn't have to come with the intention of making these people miserable. So what I would say, to all these people arguing for more authentic casting, is, 'Will you please, please listen to me?' This is not equality. This is not accurate representation. This is pigeonholing, and as a professional in the performance industry I demand better than this.

I will just conclude by saying that as a general point, I am tired of every LGBTQ+ character being talked about as 'a representation'. We aren't there to represent our communities. The best depiction of an LGBTQ+ character I have come across in recent years is in a YA novel called The Weight of a Thousand Feathers by Brian Conaghan (conflict of interest disclaimer - I know the author Brian Conaghan through my adaptation of one of his other novels for the stage). This story is not about a gay character; it's about a character who is gay, and there's a difference. The protagonist, 17-year-old Bobby, is a carer for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and for his younger brother who has learning difficulties, and this is the crux of the novel. Whilst never explicitly stating it outright, the author makes Bobby's homosexuality evident to the reader, with him developing an infatuation with another boy. This is a great representation of a gay teenager because it's not trying to be a good representation; he's just a character, and if his main love interest was a girl, very little about the actual story would change. This is the kind of depiction I'd really like to see more of - and there's no limit as to who can find empathy with this kind of character in a story.

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Disabled people are treated not only like second-class citizens, but like babies

This week, I was in conversation with two disabled women, Sarah and Louise. When reflecting on her experience as a disabled woman, Sarah said, 'Disabled people are treated like...' and then paused. Louise quickly jumped in with, 'Babies!' Sarah clarified that she'd been about to say 'second-class citizens'. I said to them that from what I'd seen, I actually thought that Louise had nailed it!

The context of this conversation was a major protest that I was involved in organising in Abergavenny, over the proposed sell-off of the Tudor Street Day Centre (formally known as My Day My Life, a hub with services for adults with learning difficulties and mental health problems). My involvement in this came from the fact that before we met, my partner Owen worked at this day centre, helping some of society's most vulnerable adults get the most out of their lives. Owen found this a rewarding enough experience that this year, he has brought out the novel Vulnerable Voices, about a young man who does a similar job. The book is entirely fictitious, and features a day centre in North Yorkshire instead of South Wales, but some of the characters and incidents that occur within it are loosely inspired by real life events. The audiobook will be released soon, narrated by the actor Nico Mirallegro.

In addition to the nostalgia, the book also covers some of the darker side of that kind of job. Owen was aware of bullying and neglect that went on behind the scenes, and this is covered in his novel with characters whose depictions will be recognised by almost anyone who has worked in any kind of office - but it seems to happen all the time in the world of care. You can find myriads of news reports detailing unsavoury things that our vulnerable relatives have been through. I questioned recently why it is that the care profession, supposedly one that attracts the most compassionate people, so often attracts the precise opposite, and was drawn to the conclusion that it must be because it's one of the easiest industries to get into. More importantly, there rarely seems to be any sturdy and systematic process to stop these kinds of things happening - and the reason for that is very straightforward. Processes cost money, and processes that protect vulnerable/disabled people benefit people who are least likely to generate capital for the establishment - therefore, they are not considered worthy of the money. Compassion is not the goal; if compassion exists at all, it exists purely to create a smokescreen of a caring authority.

This is the underlying reason for the proposed sell-off and demolition of Tudor Street Day Centre. The My Day My Life service was closed as part of the 2020 lockdown, and has never been re-opened. The 'official' version of events is that other services have since come about which have provided new and better services for the former service-users; but this is untrue. Having spoken to numerous service users and their families, we have it on record from quite a few different people that there are now very few really decent services for them within the Monmouthshire area since the closure of the My Day My Life service. What's more, I understand Owen to tell me that the My Day My Life service was being undermined as far back at when he left in 2017, with alternative schemes being set up to take some of the funding and provide a lesser-quality service - i.e. to take people on day trips, but in a less person-centred and individualised way. The council claims that a review is currently being undertaken in regards to disability services within the county - but is selling off its greatest asset, which already has all the disability access sorted, in advance of this review being concluded. (Incidentally, the proposed sell-off is to a housing development trust, which the council claims is to house the homeless. This is patently not true; no one believes that any new homes built there will be affordable to homeless people, and saying they will is merely an attempt to pit one marginalised group against another.)

The protest was on Wednesday 7th December, and involved a large group of us, including many past service-users and their families, standing outside the building in Tudor Street holding placards and chanting. Joining us at the protest were local Labour councillors Tudor Thomas (Cabinet Member for Social Care, Safeguarding and Accessible Health Services) and Sara Burch (Cabinet Member for Inclusive and Active Communities). That these are their job titles is actually laughable, because neither of them behaved with the slightest interest in safeguarding, making social care health services accessible or inclusive in the slightest. They actually behaved in a consistently passive-aggressive manner; upon arrival, they set up a speaker system to lecture the crowd at our own protest, before attempting to leave without listening to any of the actual disabled people who wanted to speak.

Here is a picture of myself, Owen and another protester confronting Councillors Thomas and Burch as they attempted to leave. Whilst this was happening, there were service users addressing the crowd on the other side of the road:

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear much of what the service users were saying, as I felt it more important to try to reason with the councillors and try to get them to listen. We did eventually persuade them to come across to the other side of the road for a few more minutes, during which time they were confrontational, dismissive of people's concerns and, in my own humble opinion, quite rude. I think their body language in the above photo says quite a lot about what their priorities were; they had intended to come purely to represent the council to Wales Online and the South West Argus who were there on the day, rather than to listen to anyone's actual needs for that building. They couldn't have hurried away fast enough after they'd barged in to give the first speeches, and then we practically had to drag them back over.

At one point, I asked Councillor Thomas if he himself had ever actually visited any of the service users at their homes, sat down with them and asked them what they thought about all of this. He admitted that he had not. Doing this is absolutely essential to any review, because one of the most truly wrong things about this is that of all marginalised groups in society, the disabled are often the least capable of speaking out and defending their human rights. This is why disability rights so often lag behind the rights of other people - because no matter how oppressed someone is, in most cases they're easily able to network with other people who have similar experiences and band together to get their voices heard. I know from personal experience that there were a lot of interested parties who were simply unable to make it to the protest, either because they were too unwell, because they couldn't find people to bring them or because their carers had already made other plans for that day. This last was actually the basis behind the 'they treat us like babies' outburst - all too often, carers make plans for their clients unilaterally, irrespective of what the clients actually wish for. I can appreciate that on occasion someone with a severe learning difficulty will be unable to make their own decisions, but in most cases it seems to me that the whole point of having carers is to help people live more independently. If they can't do that, if they're treating their clients like children and making decisions for them like a parent, I would think that is separate from their remit).

Why am I so passionate about this, when I don't even live in the area? Well, aside from the fact that I got involved by accident through my partner, I actually believe in helping communities get the best out of their public services. We hear so often about unilateral decisions from politicians, without undertaking effective consultation from the people they are meant to serve. Disabled and mentally ill people are some of the most vulnerable in society, and it's important that we stand up for them - especially when they are unable to stand up for themselves, which many of them are.

The protest has so far been quite successful, in that it has generated a call-in of the council's decision to sell off the Tudor Street building pending a meeting in early 2023, which Owen and I will be attending. In the meantime, please sign this petition against the plans. And if you'd like to read a more impartial account of Wednesday's protest, take a look at this fantastic article in WalesOnline by the journalist Jonathon Hill.

Here are some more photographs of the protest, courtesy of photographer Annie Ward:

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Ten years since Jimmy Savile, nothing has changed

 It was about this time in 2012 when, a year following his death, it was revealed that Jimmy Savile, believed to be a beloved children's entertainer, was actually a predatory sex offender and paedophile. The case sparked probably the most talked about police investigation in the whole of the 2010s decade, and resulted in the exposure of other powerful predators, such as entertainer Rolf Harris and politician Cyril Smith.

The case against Savile in particular has always been a matter of intense interest for me ever since I first learned of it. The thing that I find deeply shocking is not so much the grotesque acts of sexual violence that he committed (which are bad enough); but more, the fact that his behaviour was so widely known within the entertainment industry. It was actually known enough that he joked about it himself on television - whilst watching a selection of old clips of him back, he often alludes to his own inappropriate behaviour. He said on television, in relation to volunteering at a hospital, he said, 'I am a voluntary helper. Sometimes, when nobody’s looking, I help the lasses'. He said on repeated occasions that he was 'barred from every girls' school in the country', and once, when asked how he thought he'd be remembered after he died, he openly laughed about it and said that he didn't care - knowing very well that allegations would only come out once he was no longer alive to take responsibility. He was able to do this without any fear of repercussions, because he knew he was untouchable. The Jimmy Savile case is so unsettling not because of the terrible things he did (as horrible as it is, we all know that there are many people out there capable of these acts); it's unsettling because it was deliberately covered up.

I'd like to be able to say that we've learned from the past - but I have not seen any evidence that that is so. In this article, Mark Williams-Thomas, who played a large part in exposing Savile's crimes, says that there are still protected sex offenders who work prominently in the entertainment industry, and one in particular, almost certainly a child molester, who he has worked very hard to get prosecuted. In this film, the broadcaster Louis Theroux interviews comedian Katherine Ryan, who talks about how she called someone out for being a predator on a panel show, and that this was cut from the broadcast version (that part of the conversation is about fifteen minutes in). I have no idea if Williams-Thomas and Ryan are talking about the same person (I think probably not, as I believe Ryan would have said if the person she was talking about had abused children - though perhaps she doesn't know that aspect). But if they're talking about different people, it almost makes it worse. It means that this is continuing to happen regularly. Since 2012, a few historical cases may have been brought to justice, but nothing has really changed systematically.

I have a bit of personal experience with this. A few years ago, a friend of mine confided to me that they had been sexually assaulted by a minor celebrity. There wasn't enough evidence to charge this person, however the story got into the media and the minor celebrity's name was dragged through the mud. The outcome was that the minor celebrity was dropped from their role as a regular on a popular BBC television programme - however, the BBC claimed that it had nothing to do with the allegations and that they were merely refreshing all the regulars on this programme. I do not believe either that this was true, or that anyone truly believed it, for a few reasons: 1) It coincided almost exactly with the celebrity's name coming out in the media; 2) None of the other regulars were dropped; and 3) They have not even repeated any old episodes featuring that person since, which they had done in the past when people had left the show.

I think that if the BBC had made clear that as a result of the allegations they were completely disassociating themselves from this contributor, that would have been reasonable. I think that if they'd said that it had nothing to do with them until the contributor was charged with a crime and that therefore they were taking no action, this would also have been reasonable. There are strong arguments for each of these reactions. However, they did neither of these things. What they did instead was to disassociate themselves from someone whose name carried baggage, but in a way that didn't actually hold them accountable for anything. This seems to me to be the worst of both worlds, as it protects neither the accuser nor the accused - all it does is allow the BBC to not take any position at all. And given that the BBC has historically been so heavily involved in covering up abuses of power by people like Jimmy Savile, I think it's important that they do take a position actually.

This kind of position from the BBC is very consistent. Time and again, we see them covering something up until it's unavoidable, then completely disassociating themselves from it - but only to protect themselves from the bad publicity. To take Savile as an example, they have removed episodes featuring him (or even referencing him) from their public archives. Essentially, the idea is to hide the fact that he was ever so closely involved with them. I find this really harmful - you cannot commit to doing better in the future unless you acknowledge and accept what you've done in the past. I've been writing this blog since I was 17 - I'm now 29 and there are some things I wrote in my early days which I certainly no longer believe. But I still keep them up, because they're a part of my history and it's dishonest to pretend I never wrote them. Likewise - the BBC should be clear not only that what Jimmy Savile did was terrible, but also that they themselves were complicit. They should acknowledge that, consistently, and only then can we have any faith that they will improve in the future.

I strongly suspect that the person who assaulted my friend was known about by those in the know before it got into the media - but no action was taken until it was unavoidable, and even then it was the most watered-down pathetic thing I've ever seen. The reason for this is largely because of our collective obsession with celebrity. Celebrity culture is utterly toxic. It creates a vibe that you should have a strong feeling about someone you don't know purely because they've reached a high place in society. I've come to realise in the last few years that I have no interest in celebrities. If someone is good at their job, fair enough, and if they're not that's as maybe - and neither of those things have any bearing on what I think of them personally as a human being, which I won't have any opinion on unless I happen to cross paths with them in real life.

I think that a lot of problems in our society are to do with the power of celebrity culture. I think about it a lot in relation to people like JK Rowling - who has gone from beloved children's author to transphobic pariah. I'm deeply disappointed in her, just as I'm disappointed in anyone with bigoted views, but the most important question I always ask is, why does she have such a big platform in the first place? She's just a person, who has managed to earn a lot of money through being good at writing stories, and we shouldn't know anything else about her besides that unless we happen to know her personally. But for some reason, being talented at entertainment or literature means that we allow complete strangers to have far greater an influence in our lives than they would otherwise have - and that gives them the ability to abuse that influence. Celebrity culture is such a powerful influence in Western society that it's actually quite hard to snap out of it and remember that - but I think it is important to, because it's the root cause of this protection of the powerful.

There are other Jimmy Saviles out there. If you happen to know about one of them, although I recognise that it may be quite difficult, I urge you to tell someone about it - but only if you know for certain, of course. Whether they're an actor, a TV presenter, a broadcaster, a teacher, a a janitor or a road-sweeper makes not one ounce of difference to their danger to the public.

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Five reasons why Black Friday is an international disgrace

 I have never participated in the celebration of consumerism known collectively as Black Friday. Ten years ago, I'd never even heard of it. It's been celebrated in the USA since 1952, but is a far more recent thing in the UK, only really starting around 2013.

The origin basically seems to come from the fact that in the USA, Christmas is the next major holiday once Thanksgiving is over, and Black Friday is traditionally held the day after... marking the beginning of 'Christmas shopping season'. Thanksgiving is an American holiday commemorating the Pilgrim Fathers, and has very little significance the rest of the world over. The reason Black Friday has crossed over to the UK (and many other countries as well) seems to be down to two things: 1) The rise in online shopping; and 2) Because Asda, which is owned by Walmart, decided to participate and it went from there.

I think the whole thing is foul, and I will not participate. Here are five reasons why I feel this way:

1) It's a celebration of consumerism

I don't tend to buy many Christmas presents. I don't really ask for people to buy them for me either. If someone would like to buy me something, that's up to them. And if I do buy something for someone, it's usually because I've seen something that's made me think of them, or that I know they could really use. I hate the formality of gift-giving. A gift is a non-essential special thing that you do for someone, a moment to demonstrate that you value their presence in your life and that you're interested enough in them to know what they want/need. It is NOT an opportunity for relentless marketing, advertising and selling for huge corporations to get a nice bottom line at the end of the year. The Christmas shopping season is a horrible, cynical attempt to cash in on people's kindness to one another.

People with small children are the greatest victims of this, because much of the marketing is aimed strongly at children. We have a cost of living crisis; I know anecdotally of people who can barely afford to eat, but still somehow manage to scrape together enough to buy their child the latest gadget. And how can you not, if their child is being led to believe constantly that this is how a good parent shows love to their child?

2) It's utterly hypocritical

This is more in relation to the American side, which I don't personally have much connection to, but it needs saying. The meaning of Thanksgiving is in the name - it's to do with being thankful for what you have, spending some much-needed time with your loved ones. This is the antithesis to our consumerist culture, and is an attitude that we urgently need more of in every culture. And then the next day, everyone dashes out to embrace consumerism even more wildly than they did before. What happened to being thankful for what you had?

3) It actually causes people to spend more

You know, we're in a cost-of-living crisis. If there's something you badly need, I won't begrudge you waiting until the day when you might happen to get a few quid off. But here's a great deal for you: if you don't buy it, you get 100% off! Yes, I know, almost too good to be true. There's a serious point here though - a lot of us could probably do with living more frugally, using fewer of the planet's resources, and if you don't need it, the cost being reduced is not good enough reason to buy it.

I've seen personally that it can actually cause selfishness. I used to be a door-to-door charity cold caller, and I will always recall the number of people who, in 2017, couldn't sign up to charity because, they claimed, they'd spent all their money in the sales. If you can't afford it, fair enough. But if this is about saving money, why are people suddenly more hard-up after it than they were before?

4) It can get physically dangerous

Just look at these. I'm a bit loath to share this link as the website talks about it in quite a flippant and humorous way - but every single year, there's some kind of report of a fight or someone getting hurt as a result of the Black Friday rush. That's not even counting abuse to retail staff.

5) It's bad for the environment

You know, Cop27 is over, and as usual it's Cop-Out 27, with very little in the way of commitments to phasing out fossil fuels. If we're going to do anything about this global warming thing, looks like we're going to have to do it ourselves. A festival celebrating consumerism and greed is not conducive to that. At all.

Thankfully, I've seen a lot less Black Friday stuff around this year anyway. I'm not sure if that's because the world is waking up or if it's because the cost of living crisis has got so dire that people don't have the time to think about purchasing useless items even if they are on sale, but it is at least welcome.

If you want to get some new stuff, why not take a visit to your local charity shop? Bring a bunch of your old junk whilst you're at it as well.

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