Thespian THOUGHTS

by Ralph Oswick

Whingers

As chairman of the Bath Whingeing Festival I wish to make a complaint. This week my doormat has been knee-deep in brochures, leaflets and invitations.

It seems the next few months are brimming with festivals, street parties, exhibitions and openings. Quite how one is expected to attend all these events, heaven knows.

For a start, that Joanna MacGregor and her team have dreamed up an International Music Festival programme that spans everything from highbrow classics to far-out jazz piano bashing. Annoyingly, my team of whingers were hard put to find anything to moan about in the festival programme, though they did point out that there was an unfortunate clash between two events featuring the music of Thelonious Monk.

We used to whinge about the city not looking festive for the festival but, as one of my committee commented, if festive means herds of plastic pigs, let's go back to tatty banners.

Then there's that Fringe thing. How come if they've had their grant disastrously cut by the council they can still put on a programme absolutely packed with exciting, innovative and accessible events? Something fishy there, I reckon. Mind, they forgot to put the dates on the front of the brochure, so nobody will be going anyway. And as for the Fabulous Spiegeltent, the only people who know where it is will be the Whingeing Festival's Pulteney Street Noise Abatement sub-committee when they march over the Recreation Ground to complain about those annoying mime artists.

To our chagrin we read that one of the Fringe theatre performances is to take place on the Bath-Bristol cycle path. As if our dog walkers didn't have enough to contend with, with all those speeding cyclists. Now there will be actors lurking in the bushes to frighten Fido. And they tell us even the audience will be on bikes. What happens when they clap?

Then someone said the boules championship is on again. Zut alors! Will they never learn? Anyone can see that the beautiful trees in Queen Square are withering from being repeatedly struck by heavy metal objects. Or was that the ice-skating? Or maybe it was the madrigals in The Circus?

One thing that did put my committee in a quandary was Walcot Nation Day. At first we voted to complain that it wasn't taking place this year. In fact, we were outraged at the short-sightedness of the powers-that-be in not supporting an event that brings together the whole community in a celebration of the unique character of a neighbourhood that stands out like a beacon of individuality and creativity in an ocean of Bath stone homogeneity.

Then we remembered that when it did take place we complained bitterly that it was just an excuse for a booze-up for the great unwashed.

On the other side of the river, those idiots who organise Widcombe Rising are proposing to install a 51 ft-high big wheel for the day. The Widcombe Eye, no less. Not nice for residents of Claverton Street who have decided to have a Sunday morning lie-in to discover half of Bath ogling them through the bedroom nets. However, these poor people will have to cope for themselves, as most of our whingers will be otherwise engaged at our protest camp on the site of the Holburne Museum extension. The rest will be picketing the Guildhall for allowing camping in Sydney Gardens.

On the whole, it's going to be a bad summer for whingers. Our campaign to force the Hansom cab horses to wear nappies has failed; our efforts to stop the derelict Beau Nash cinema from being turned into a seedy nightclub have been ignored, even though we were aided and abetted in our campaign by several existing seedy nightclubs; and Meatloaf is being allowed to perform on the Recreation Ground. They'll be allowing Wagner at The Forum next!

No, I regret to say that there are just too many things going on. We moaners are being marginalised, even though we are fully paid-up members of the Cultural Forum.Consequently I am sorry to announce that the Whingeing Festival has been put off until next year. Please forward complaints to a info@whingecentral.org or online at www.moaningminnies.co.uk"

BATH CHRONICLE