What is new about brutality? It has been present in drama and art from at least the time of the ancient Greeks. This idea was touched on in the article in a quote from Howard Brenton, but then seemed to be ignored. The human race is both historically brutal and currently brutal. Sometimes art is allowed to express this and sometimes it is not, but this reality does not change.

Edward Bond whose plays had far more violent impacts than the current work examined in the article said:

“Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want them to stop writing about our time. It would be immoral not to write about violence.”

He wrote this in the seventies, but is still intensely relevant. It is also relevant to all the times leading up to now. There is nothing “new” about brutality.

To the point. A quote from J.G. Ballard in your article states:

“Mainstream entertainment is so manufactured now and this is what extreme artists are kicking against.”

And this is true. People who want change often find that violent means are the only way to elicit any response. However it strikes me as a ridiculous irony that the statement is contained in this article. “New” brutality in its very concept sounds disturbingly like “New” Labour. Both are concepts without any foundation in reality. New Labour is nothing like old Labour and there is nothing new about artists using brutality. Sound bites of a media obsessed society, both are glib statements with nothing beneath. The article links three recent works of art that seem, even from the superficial description igiven of them, to be very different in intent and standard. However they allow for some eye catchingly shocking photographs and headlines, sucking towards them the eyes of all voyeuristic “Big Brother” fans. The article, I am sorry to say, seemed to be doing the same thing it suggests the artists are doing, using shock tactics to sell and attract attention.

The article pretends to be well-rounded and even-handed. There are many quotes, but no modern examples of successful or interesting art using violence as a dramatic device, metaphor or weapon. Only modern work of puerility is mentioned. The only promising examples used are from the past.

Perhaps this is the problem. That there is no attention given to modern valid art as everyone is too busy trying to find the sensational. I know there are good violent plays around. I occasionally read small reviews about them in your arts pages. But the only well known violent and good plays were either written in the past or are written now by previously established playwrights. Films do alright though. Every week there is an article artistically justifying a violent film.

I love film and I love plays. But they are very different experiences. Maybe in this culture that rejects change, where the politicians are afraid of any kind of social reform or un-soundbitten statement, there is no place for the theatre except in pop culture musicals. Maybe plays will die out. But in choosing to publicise the controversial over the good (the article is much longer than the later theatre reviews, which also covered the same plays) you and Vanessa Thorpe have chosen to stand on the side of the decay of theatre. You also stand on the side of the status quo that grips this country. Though a left-wing tending newspaper you are, it seems, a part of the media culture you criticise. You are in no way as damned as the Murdoch press, but you are still damned.