NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND

In Belfast and London

TONY PALMER

On Saturday week in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, the first party confer- ence of The Alliance Party of Northern Ire- land is to be held. Describing itself as a militant moderate group, it claims to speak for the majority of Northern Irelanders who wish for an end to the terrorism as well as a just settlement of their real grievances. The movement has its own newspaper, The Alliance, and in it recently published a poem contributed by a Belfast schoolteacher, Margaret Grant Cormack, which seeks to express the men- tality of the twelve and thirteen-year-old kids who, having nowhere but the street for a playground, involve themselves in the riots and killing. As poetry it lacks finesse. But as a simple testament of hurt, it is frighten- ing :

'I like a riot I like fightin'.

A riot's excitin'.

All afternoon the street is too quiet We jouk among the parked cars In mock wars With a mock gun.

But our riot's for real—

A riot's fun.

Mum says: "keep out of harm's way.

It's not child's play".

But Dad says: "Woman, talk sense

The kid has to learn self defence—

It's either them or us."

Anything can start a riot Like stoning a bus or smashing a window Or setting a shop alight.

Then the noise brings the men out of pubs To join in the fight.

And the police come And the soldiers.

But we keep them all on the run.

A riot's great fun.

A riot's great You can stay up as late as late And nobody, only a fool

Would feel fit to be going to school

Next day.

I must say That the odd time somebody gets hurt In any proper fight It's not usually one of us So that's alright.

I hate it in our street when it's quiet.

I love a riot.'

No doubt the IRA upon reading this poem will look upon Miss Cormack and her schoolchildren as immediate potential re- cruits for the cause. Another IRA, Ira Gersh- win, backed into the limelight this week in a little publicised get-together at London's Phoenix Theatre on Sunday evening. Graced, and the organisers kept telling me that was the word, by Princess Margaret, the charity do was in aid of WAP and consisted of the music and songs of the brothers Gershwin. Wm., or Wavendon Allmusic Plan to those in the know, is the brainchild of John Dank- worth and Cleo Laine who last year con- verted the stables in the backyard of their country house into a 200-seater concert hall. Dankworth had the idea that maybe those

so-called musical barriers that existed bet- ween high art—the classics like Mozart and other heavies—and low art—all that rancid pop music—were not insurmountable.

Moving with the swiftness of one who has stumbled upon the obvious and wants to patent the idea before anyone else gets wind of it, Dankworth then proclaimed that there were only three kinds of music after all, good music, bad music and non-music and that it didn't matter whether the stuff was called pop, jazz or classical as long as it was good. Armed with his new found cause he set about persuading a whole host of dis- tinguished and otherwise musical friends to travel to Wavendon, Bucks, and initially for little more than a hot supper give their all. Andre Previn, John Ogdon, John Williams and Richard Rodney Bennett suddenly found themselves rubbing shoulders with Julie Felix and Rolf Harris. The scheme was made intellectually respectable by the extra prom- ise that at certain key times during the year, an educational programme would be estab- lished for the mutual enlightenment of selected students from round about.

John Williams, who became one of WAP'S artistic directors, was particularly keen on this part of the idea. In practice, much of the idea has worked out. Last year, WAP put on forty-three concerts including a ten-day festival organised by one Michael Emerson who had previously organised festivals •in Belfast and Newcastle. For reasons un- known, but believed to be not unconnected with the fact that in both towns he lost a lot of local money, Mr Emerson is now ex- director of the Belfast and Newcastle Fes- tivals. Doubtless WAP will now benefit from his full-time attention which should be worth watching because some reckoned that Emer- son's main achievement in Belfast and Newcastle was to establish festivals which, in spite of various incidental trappings, had nothing to do with either Belfast or New- castle. All he really did was to plug each town into the festival circuit and thereby provide even more round-the-year entertain- ment for some artists who otherwise would be unlikely to survive in any public sense.

This sophisticated musician's benevolent organisation, sometimes called 'Bring Cul- ture to the Provinces at any price', looks like swallowing up WAP which, from the point of view of its educational pretensions, would be a disaster. John Williams has already had a row along these lines and wants to quit and Princess Margaret, by her very presence, is ensuring that the kind of people who might want to benefit from the excellent facilities that the scheme offers, are more likely to stay away. Instead, droves of 'Spot the Royals' brigade are attracted; socially accep- table art takes the place of genuine, creative music-making, and kitsch almost reigns supreme.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about Peter Sellers and his difficulties with a certain Roundhouse production. I am pleased to record that these differences have been set- tled. It turns out that Mr Sellers was unwell at the time of his cancellation; but, being the generous person he is, he has now con- tributed towards the costs incurred by his cancellation.