Jo Bartosch article in MoS on Graham Linehan exclusion

Abitofalark · 2021-12-19T01:41:17+00:00

The ever excellent Jo Bartosch on how GL / Glinner is being frozen out of a musical of his own creation, Father Ted, by producers' fears of trans extremists getting it shut down. This is reminiscent of Rose, the dancer choreographer being shut out of her own company by young dancers, and JK Rowling being denounced by her young actors and her name almost erased from her own creation's film by a Hollywood company: "Hat Trick had asked Mr Linehan to remain silent on the subject, but he had found it difficult. ‘The warnings from the production company became more insistent,’ explained Mr Linehan. ‘After a while, I had a very funny meeting with a top public relations guy at the company. ‘I’d hoped it might help improve my image. Instead he said: “Graham, I have to tell you, there are some people in the office who won’t work for you”.’ Mr Linehan added: ‘In almost every company I’ve worked with there are now young employees who are ferociously authoritarian. ‘They seem to think that unless you believe the same things as them then you have no right to take part in society.’ " [[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10324511/Father-Ted-creator-claims-trans-zealots-forcing-stage-version-show.html]] It's interesting to see Jo Bartosch moving up from Spiked to the mainstream press, at first to The Times where she had an article recently and now to the mass circulation Mail on Sunday. Similarly Julie Bindel has made the Mail very recently. Good on them.

Mochudubh · 21/12/2021 18:23

It's all part of the same thing as the "bring your whole self to work" bollocks. If it's got fuck all to do with work leave it at the door.

GoodieMoomin · 20/12/2021 19:11

I won't be seeing this show if Glinner is bullied out, and I don't imagine many gender identity theorists (GITs) would want to see it either way

CandidaAlbicans2 · 20/12/2021 18:18

[quote Apollo441]@glinner
Don't you dare remove yourself. You have 100 times the support of the TRAs. Are they seriously saying that Father Ted fans are woke and wouldn't go to the show? Fuck off with that. If you aren't involved I won't go and neither would any of my friends. Seriously most of the Father Ted generation are in their 40's now and have no truck with gender ideology. TRA wokesters in their early 20's are not your audience and I doubt they are the ones with the money to shell out £60 for a theatre ticket. I'd be happy to run a gauntlet of TRA supporters trying to picket the theatre. Infact it is sort of in the spirit of Father Ted. Stand your ground. This is bullshit.[/quote]
Totally agree. My first thoughts were that I couldn't see the TRAs being Father Ted fans, so won't have bought tickets anyway, and that if they protested outside the theatre, so what! If they cause a nuisance phone the Police, otherwise ignore them.

@Glinner, I also just wanted to give a huge thanks for all you've been doing for women and girls, and I'm so sorry you have to put up with so much shit

GrandmaMazur · 20/12/2021 17:18

Would it be worth writing to Hat Trick? Think I will

RuggerHug · 20/12/2021 16:26

@senua

“Graham, I have to tell you, there are some people in the office who won’t work for you." I feel very old. In my day the boss told you what to do (within the confines of the job description) and if you wanted to keep the job, you did it. Since when did employees get to pick and choose which bit of the job they feel like doing?

Hattrick should be going down the improvement plan / disciplinary route.

They have senua

DrBlackbird · 20/12/2021 11:46

@senua

“Graham, I have to tell you, there are some people in the office who won’t work for you." I feel very old. In my day the boss told you what to do (within the confines of the job description) and if you wanted to keep the job, you did it. Since when did employees get to pick and choose which bit of the job they feel like doing?

Hattrick should be going down the improvement plan / disciplinary route.

The response to employees not wishing to work on producing stage productions is 'bye bye then'

We live in a strange world now. Authority seems to no longer reside in expert knowledge or creative individuals or employers or established democratic institutions. This example feels to be just one of many arenas where emotion and manufactured moral outrage trumps all other arguments or evidence. At its heart, it’s not about the putative issue to hand, whatever that issue is. It’s about who holds power, who doesn’t but wants to, and about the strategies to gain and hold power such as through the creation and control of a dominant narrative.

What confuses me is how easily power is ceded.

BraveBananaBadge · 20/12/2021 11:19

True, Corgi and Countess, suppose I'm just assuming the worst from looking at my local theatre scene (including venues that have supported Glinner in the past) and taking an educated guess at what would happen. Commercial theatres might be the answer - can't see anywhere dependent on Arts Council funding for example wanting to risk the bad press of protest or relentless online abuse.

That doesn't address the fact it shouldn't be happening, as you rightly point out. There's no way he should have to consider stepping back for the 'greater good' of the production and keeping people in work.

RuggerHug · 20/12/2021 10:44

@senua

“Graham, I have to tell you, there are some people in the office who won’t work for you." I feel very old. In my day the boss told you what to do (within the confines of the job description) and if you wanted to keep the job, you did it. Since when did employees get to pick and choose which bit of the job they feel like doing?

Hattrick should be going down the improvement plan / disciplinary route.

They have

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 20/12/2021 10:41

Totally agree RoyalCorgi. These are very convenient principles that allow the money making project to go ahead while punishing the originator so you can pretend to virtue. This is not principled behaviour in the least, it is sheer hypocrisy.

I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death my right to profit from you…

RoyalCorgi · 20/12/2021 10:33

The theatre industry is one that is particularly 'captured' though. It won't just be the junior staff that will be out for Glinner and they will be a small team so all opinions will hold weight. For them, even if they're privately supportive the bad press and social media backlash (especially from other creatives) might be something they're not prepared to handle, especially given the state the industry's in.

Fair enough. But if they feel that strongly, then they should refuse to work on the project, not work on the project while pretending that it somehow created itself. I find the hypocrisy of that particularly enraging - if you have principles, at least have the decency to follow them through to the end. I suppose it's always been a feature of this ideology that the people who most support it are those who have least to lose. They're not going to do anything that might put their livelihoods at risk.

averylongtimeago · 20/12/2021 10:18

[quote Apollo441]@glinner
Don't you dare remove yourself. You have 100 times the support of the TRAs. Are they seriously saying that Father Ted fans are woke and wouldn't go to the show? Fuck off with that. If you aren't involved I won't go and neither would any of my friends. Seriously most of the Father Ted generation are in their 40's now and have no truck with gender ideology. TRA wokesters in their early 20's are not your audience and I doubt they are the ones with the money to shell out £60 for a theatre ticket. I'd be happy to run a gauntlet of TRA supporters trying to picket the theatre. Infact it is sort of in the spirit of Father Ted. Stand your ground. This is bullshit.[/quote]
This. @glinner you have more support than you realise.

BraveBananaBadge · 20/12/2021 10:00

The theatre industry is one that is particularly 'captured' though. It won't just be the junior staff that will be out for Glinner and they will be a small team so all opinions will hold weight. For them, even if they're privately supportive the bad press and social media backlash (especially from other creatives) might be something they're not prepared to handle, especially given the state the industry's in.

However it would be great to be proved wrong. A big mainstream audience for this is there, and a theatre would be silly not to capitalise on that.

I recently went to see Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World and the programme was full of 'she/hers'

RoyalCorgi · 20/12/2021 09:28

This is a kind of madness. Most Father Ted fans are a bit older now - it came out in the mid-1990s, after all. And opinion polls have shown time and time again that most people are opposed to self-ID. The only people really buying this nonsense are a very particular demographic: young, white, middle-class people who imagine themselves to be socially liberal.

Secondly - and I realise I'm repeating what's already been said - employers shouldn't let staff dictate the terms of their employment. "You don't like working with Graham Linehan? The door's over there."

Finally, is it just me who is enraged at the stupidity and hypocrisy of these people whose principles apparently allow them to work on a particular creative project, but to refuse to have anything to do with the person who created it? (See also JK Rowling.) What a spoilt, petulant bunch of idiots.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 20/12/2021 09:20

[quote Apollo441]@glinner
Don't you dare remove yourself. You have 100 times the support of the TRAs. Are they seriously saying that Father Ted fans are woke and wouldn't go to the show? Fuck off with that. If you aren't involved I won't go and neither would any of my friends. Seriously most of the Father Ted generation are in their 40's now and have no truck with gender ideology. TRA wokesters in their early 20's are not your audience and I doubt they are the ones with the money to shell out £60 for a theatre ticket. I'd be happy to run a gauntlet of TRA supporters trying to picket the theatre. Infact it is sort of in the spirit of Father Ted. Stand your ground. This is bullshit.[/quote]
Agree with all of this.

loislovesstewie · 20/12/2021 09:12

I can just imagine if I went to work and told my manager that I didn't like what I had been told to do because it 'triggered' me. I mean for crying out loud do people not realize that you can have your opinions, but it's best to leave them at home, if you are being asked to do something lawful at work? Perhaps they aren't suited to this sort of work?

senua · 20/12/2021 09:03

“Graham, I have to tell you, there are some people in the office who won’t work for you."
I feel very old. In my day the boss told you what to do (within the confines of the job description) and if you wanted to keep the job, you did it. Since when did employees get to pick and choose which bit of the job they feel like doing?
Hattrick should be going down the improvement plan / disciplinary route.

RuggerHug · 20/12/2021 08:38

@SolasAnla

Wasn't Father Ted funded in the UK because they could not get funding in Ireland at the time because it was seen as too anti-catholic?

No solasanla that's never been true but the rumour went around at the time as a nice bit if of anti Irishness. Too stupid to make this show where we laugh at them, dumb Paddy's. It was never pitched to Irish TV.

girafferafferaffe · 19/12/2021 22:15

I am so sick of these people having such sway

Apollo441 · 19/12/2021 21:54

@glinner
Don't you dare remove yourself. You have 100 times the support of the TRAs. Are they seriously saying that Father Ted fans are woke and wouldn't go to the show? Fuck off with that. If you aren't involved I won't go and neither would any of my friends. Seriously most of the Father Ted generation are in their 40's now and have no truck with gender ideology. TRA wokesters in their early 20's are not your audience and I doubt they are the ones with the money to shell out £60 for a theatre ticket. I'd be happy to run a gauntlet of TRA supporters trying to picket the theatre. Infact it is sort of in the spirit of Father Ted. Stand your ground. This is bullshit.

QueenSue · 19/12/2021 20:05

Glinner

loislovesstewie · 19/12/2021 19:20

Everything that others have said

AnneLovesGilbert · 19/12/2021 18:51

Please hold out as much as you can Graham. Down with this sort of bollocks!

AlfonsoTheUnrepentant · 19/12/2021 18:49

What they said. I hope it doesn't come to that, Mr Lineham.

Redshoeblueshoe · 19/12/2021 18:44

Graham

TheMarzipanDildo · 19/12/2021 18:35

I’m very angry on your behalf Graham. Hat Trick need to get a grip.