AN English playwright has thanked the people of Scotland for giving his ‘radical’ play a chance after being ignored by swathes of the English media.
Tim Walker’s Bloody Difficult Women has ruffled feathers across the realms of politics and theatre with its portrayal of Gina Miller’s battle against Theresa May over the Government’s right to trigger Article 50.
And now, in a letter to The National, Walker has thanked the people of Scotland for giving his play a chance after some English newspapers had “declined even to acknowledge its existence” due to their “fanatically pro-Brexit stance”.
Walker said: “I should like to thank the people of Scotland for giving my play a chance and also its media, especially The National. Steph Brawn's review was thoughtful, well-written, and, for me, extremely moving. The letters you have been carrying about the play - most recently from Elaine Macdonald - have all been generous-spirited.”
Walker, who advised Miller in her media campaigns against the Government, has lamented what he calls English politic’s departure from “rational discourse” and its rejection of “the idea of democracy itself”.
Walker said that the contrast between the play’s reception in Scotland and England bears this out.
The playwright has spoken of how a theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph - where Walker worked for a decade - blocked him on social media after he asked why the paper had refused to review it in either London or Edinburgh.
Similarly, the Daily Mail refused to review the play after a request to see the script in advance made by its former editor, Paul Dacre, was rebuffed.
Speaking of England’s reaction, he says he is now considered “a dangerously radical playwright" and "no doubt an ‘enemy of the people’" – a reference to the Daily Mail’s description of the judges who decided the Government could not unilaterally trigger art. 50.
But in Scotland, Walker says some sections of the media have not completely lost their perspective when it comes to politics.
He says: “My gratitude to the people of Scotland is heartfelt. You still have something very valuable - please don't lose it.”
