Tag: mi6

In Britain we love to spy and be spied upon. Reality shows are novocain for the sharp pangs of our undercover yearnings. We cherish our mobile telephone numbers until they become our personal bar codes. National Express train posters encourage you to report fellow passengers who are propping their feet on the seat or hiding in the loo from the conductor. There is little irony in Big Brotherʼs Britain.

Why don’t we do it in the road? Why not indeed, Mr. McCartney. While we’re at it why not in Paddington Station, the jungle or an old car parts factory in Digbeth? Let me beat you to the blush, I’m referring to the joy of singing, not sex, opera not operatics. For opera has long been making love to its audience in the strangest of places. One rendezvous in the early Noughties, orchestrated by an unlikely matchmaker, BBC3, was at Paddington station. At 9pm a flash-mob dressed as football fans converged upon the concourse and belted-out Madam Butterfly. A year before, The Birmingham Opera Company staged Bernstein’s Candide in a dilapidated manufacturing plant. Hardly the setting for romance but both critics and the local community were love-struck.