David Greig - playwright - struggle session

[ArabeIIaKarenScott]

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23728722.playwright-david-greig-apologises-row-tweets/

'ONE of Scotland’s most high-profile playwrights has apologised to staff at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh for “careless and harmful” Twitter actions.
David Greig’s apology came after another writer accused him of favouriting tweets she alleged were transphobic.
Mr Greig, who has been the theatre’s artistic director since 2015, said he could not remember clicking the like button on the two social media messages but that he accepted that he had.

...

Rosie Aspinall Priest, an artist and researcher, shared the two liked tweets, alleging that Mr Greig was “openly liking transphobic tweets.”
“Really awful things on display here that do not align with the values inherent within Scotland’s theatre sector,” she said.
Soon after Mr Greig deleted his account.'

My challenge to you today, readers of FWR, and especially wims in Scotland, is to read that article <without> the creeping sense that you are living in the pages a dystopian novel.

Good luck.

No, it's an addiction to power and control. Sadism even.

I don't doubt that, like most arts and media, theatre is dominated by privately educated white men like Greig - but how was his alleged secret alt account discovered? Having aired such a serious allegation, it would be very important to provide hard evidence rather than hearsay.

@MissAnneLister that's a serious accusation. Are you able to back it up with the name of the sock account you are alleging he has been using? Even if it has been deactivated its ghost will remain searchable in threads.

The reason David is the centre of a scandal is because his secret alt account was discovered, and he'd been tweeting lots of racist and transphobic tweets. And because of his behaviour privately towards staff and freelance artists.

If this is true then the people alleging this need to provide the evidence for it. Your accusations don't appear to have anything to do with the tweets he's apologised for.

David IS the establishment, and it's actual freelance playwrights (mainly women) being fucked over by him.

Could you please explain what "being fucked over" means in this context? You haven't backed that up or substantiated it at all, even with unproven allegations. Is he perhaps fucking over freelance playwrights by... being more successful than them and earning more money?

There's a very familiar pattern with social justice pile-ons where someone successful is targeted by much less successful people in the same industry over vague, unspecified or unproven sins. (Though usually the target is a woman - I'm going to guess this male target is gay?)

Everything you've said so far matches to that familiar pattern.

People like me and my friends, who have to work with extremely powerful men like David (bear in mind he's not just a playwright, he also Artistic Director - basically like CEO - of a major theatre in Scotland) have to treat very carefully because powerful male industry leaders who hold the top jobs can destroy women's careers in a heartbeat

So... By your argument people are using the "transphobic" tweets to take him down even though they know that's unfair because they can't get him for his "real" crimes.
Even if that were true can you not see how very wrong and counterproductive that is? It doesn't make it any less distopian.

I think @MissAnneLister is right about the arts establishment. I notice she liked the tweets Grieg is called transphobic for liking (I agree with them too). She may have a point, but it's not helped by throwing unfounded and unprovable allegations against Grieg. And Scotland is under the cosh of the SNP's gender woo, too.

Please sign this - it will help to protect our children by ensuring that offenders can't hide behind a "gender"change and have the name under which they committed their offences hidden..

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/637290

Scotland is under the cosh of the SNP's gender woo, too.

This was my point.

David Greig is white . Even if I hadn't seen the photo I'd know this from @MissAnneLister 's post. She mentions the word white an impressive six times.

Greig is Scottish. Scotland is 95.5 % white.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-end-of-the-enlightenment/

Some context.

I've been following this on twitter and I also work in theatre (although not in Scotland). This unsubstantiated allegation about David Greig's second twitter account cited by @MissAnneLister was also cited by Rosie Aspinall Priest before she deleted her twitter account, and I have no idea whether it's true - I did have a quick look at the account she cited, but I can't remember it's details and I couldn't see any obvious link. I've followed David Greig for years on twitter (where most of his tweets are about hillforts, running , and some very funny riffs which have nothing to do with either or indeed theatre) and am familiar with his plays, and there's absolutely nothing in his track record that I've seen which indicates he is racist or transphobic.

After 40 years working in theatre, I'd argue that most theatre leaders are left-wing to a fault, and incredibly sympathetic to gay issues in particular (there are a hell of a lot of gay men running theatres). Together with a lot of guilt about how arts organisations have handled sexism and racism in the past (highlighted by the "Me Too" movement and BLM), and with lots of younger staff being more forceful about this, I'd argue that this has meant that most arts leaders have been falling over themselves to support trans issues, because - unless they've really looked into it - they see it as more of the same -eg something they should be supporting, and which would upset their staff if they don't.

DG is possibly unusual in that he was following a wider range of people on twitter, made a mistake in "liking" a couple of tweets and got called on it by someone who has been on his case for a while, partly because he's been disagreeing with another issue - the role of Ballie Gifford in supporting the Book Festival - when they also invest in fossil fuels.

Whatever the backstory of this case might be I have certainly seen many, many examples on Twitter of individuals telling their followers that some famous person is following the Wrongthinking People (or even liking a tweet by them, the horror!) and must be made to see the error of his or her way. Then the swarming.

This is authoritarian behaviour, of course, so it's shocking to see so many with lefty politics engage in it.

Also, to be well-informed it often makes sense to follow the accounts of those who disagree with you or, if you like, even the accounts of your enemies, because you should know what they are thinking or planning. And sometimes a person you disagree with can make a valid point which might deserve a like if you give those.

But none of that is true in the world of sheer tribalism, and that's where we increasingly find ourselves. With that go almost religious frameworks of thought: basic tenets must never be debated, a disagreement causes excommunication, non-believers are never to be listened to, heresy must be fought etc.

Indeed @nepeta Another example of this from theatre was person 1 tweeting that "an artistic director" was following JK Rowling, and they were concerned that this meant that queer actors working with them "wouldn't be safe". At least on this occasion Person 1 wouldn't say who it was, so there was no twitter witchunt, but agreed to dm person 2 (who they presumably knew) with this piece of shocking information...

After 40 years working in theatre, I'd argue that most theatre leaders are left-wing to a fault, and incredibly sympathetic to gay issues in particular (there are a hell of a lot of gay men running theatres).

Exactly.

Ah @Faceplantagain , so Aspinall Priest had already fallen out with Greig over sponsorship and fossil fuel before she came for him with this spurious nonsense. The smoke clears.

I know it's a bit of a cliché - but theatre land really does sound like a nest of vipers!