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The Herald Scotland
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Rich kids like Benedict Cumberbatch killed off working class heroes
Covering pretty much all components of culture bar popular music, there are the International, Book, Film, Fringe, and Television festivals. On this occasion, band of 'low-brow' culture, Oasis, play during them at Murrayfield for three nights. Of course, that has nothing to do with the festivals themselves. As many – over 200,000 people – will watch Oasis as attend the festivals. Read More: To perform in Edinburgh has become a major financial undertaking, costing thousands, with venues and promoters taking their cuts while performers incur most of the costs without knowing how much revenue they will generate in ticket sales. Quite a few performers are not coming as the costs are prohibitive while quite a few will leave Edinburgh in serious debt. Those that do not leave in debt are already successful or are bailed out by the 'bank of mum and dad'. Even to partake has become very expensive, whether in terms of ticket prices, travel, food, drink and accommodation. None of this is the griping of a gallus Glaswegian, having a go at the Burghers for being the bohemian bourgeoise. The ordinary Burghers are themselves priced out of performing and partaking. But it does speak to the exclusion of working-class people from the arts and culture in two ways. The first is that the working-class is not much represented in the arts and culture. Popular culture does not really like the proles. The work of the likes of Ken Currie, James Kelman, Peter Howson and Irvine Welsh are not exactly commanding presences in this world. Despite all the changes of social composition under neo-liberal capitalism, the working-class is still the biggest social class in society and the class that does the work to physically produce the wealth created by goods and services we consume. This means there's an almighty imbalance going on. The second is that working-class people are routinely excluded from working within the creative industries that produce the arts and culture. The barriers are economic and cultural. The most recent data - for 2024 - shows that only 8% of those working in the creative industries are from working-class backgrounds. This is down from 10% a decade before that. Meantime, some 60% were from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. The barriers are economic and cultural. All this is graphically – if not also cinematically - illustrated in no better way than in film and television. Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Tom Hardy, and Eddie Redmayne lead the roll call of middle-class (or even higher class) male actors. 'Posh poops' is the popular put down of them. Meantime, for the women, we have the likes of Kate Beckinsale, Helena Bonham Carter, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, and Kate Winslet. Helena Bonham Carter (Image: PA) Most went to private schools and then drama school or university with parents more than able to sufficiently subsidise them until they became very rich celebrities in their own right. Coming from such social backgrounds, they have excelled in playing characters from those class backgrounds, pre-occupied with their class issues (which do not commonly concern managing the cost-of-living crisis, debt, unemployment, access to decent housing etcetera etcetera). Those roll calls of male and female actors were English, so let's turn to the situation of comparable world-famous Scots. After all, many might have an expectation that our 'ain folk' are not only distinctly different but also bedazzlingly better. We have the likes of Gerard Butler, Robert Carlyle, Martin Compston, Sean Connery, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Karen Gillan, Shirley Henderson, Sam Heughan, James McAvoy, Ewan McGregor, Kelly McDonald, Dougray Scott, Tilda Swinton, and David Tennant amongst others. Some of them can credibly claim to have come from working-class families and then had working-class jobs before hitting the big time. Connery delivered milk, McAvoy worked in a bakery, and Carlyle was a painter and decorator. Some of the others were from the respectable middle-class. But can it credibly be argued that the likes of Connery, Carlyle and McAvoy have convincingly and sympathetically portrayed working-class lives any more or better than their fellow middle-class thespians? In some senses, this is a bit of a daft question to even ask as not even those from working-class backgrounds portrayed working-class lives, sympathetically or otherwise. That said, the answer is still a sad and salutary 'no'. Some of this is because of the parts they were offered and needed to take in order to get on and get ahead - as well as the existing culture and power structures of the world of film and television which they entered into - precluded this. But some of this is also due to the social mobility and the personal politics that come with that. The few working-class actors that make it and become big stars on the silver screen cease to be working-class no matter their protestations about not forgetting where they came from. Class is a matter of economic position. Cossetted by a lifestyle of luxury and celebrity, they end up becoming the opposite of what they were. There's no jealousy involved here. They often have had to work very hard to get there and make many sacrifices along the way. If they get to the point where they can pick and choose the roles to play or even write and direct their own material, whether they convincingly and sympathetically portray and represent the working-class will then be down to their own personal politics. There's nothing mechanical or automatic that says they will or should do so. Take the case of Tilda Swinton. Born in London to upper-class parents and privately educated, she studied at social and political sciences at University of Cambridge. She identifies as Scottish due to her family heritage. Whilst at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party and then later the Scottish Socialist Party. It's hard to find examples of where she has chosen to portray working-class lives in well-known productions. But she has had a fairly consistent run of playing politically progressive characters. So, someone born with a silver spoon in her mouth has consciously chosen to depart from playing posh poops in period dramas like Downtown Abbey. Hugh Bonneville, also privately educated and a Cambridge graduate, did not. Professor Gregor Gall is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow
Scotsman
21-04-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Readers' Letters: Scottish Government clueless when it come to Education
Scottish Government is getting it wrong on financing universities, says reader Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Our universities may not deserve pass marks for their financial acumen, but it has to be acknowledged that they are in trouble. The Principals of Edinburgh and other universities want the Scottish Government to explore the future funding model of universities, but simply receive the blunt reply that this government will not reintroduce tuition fees. So what is the alternative? I suspect the current government haven't a clue, particularly when Higher Education Minister Graeme Dey replies with: 'Access to higher education must be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay." This is at odds with widening access and accepting students with lower grades, while a good many with better grades (and hence ability to learn?) are denied places so go elsewhere, usually in England. That they are even denied access to a Scottish university if they actually want to pay is surely mad. Their money is as good as that of an English/Welsh/Irish student and they are more likely to put that education to good use within Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Until I see evidence to the contrary, I really have to believe that this Scottish Government has no clue, far less future plans, for education here. Didn't a recent first minister want to be judged by that metric? Higher Education Minister Graeme Dey says free tuition for Scottish university students must stay Ken Currie, Edinburgh Cull colleges Sir Peter Mathieson, the Principal of Edinburgh University, has said he cannot rule out compulsory redundancies (your report, 19 April). He admitted 'there were inefficiencies about the way we deliver things'. That looks like an understatement with a staff of 18,500 which has grown like Topsy. It is certain there will need to be redundancies to go towards the planned cuts of £140 million. It is obvious that academics and their unions, who are opposing compulsory redundancies at Edinburgh and Dundee universities, no longer live in the real world – if indeed they ever did. The staff at these universities have been pampered for too long, with too large salaries and a cosy lifestyle as the money rolled in from Scottish taxpayers and foreign students. In the real world the changes in National Insurance means companies are laying off staff, so why do university staff think they are special and want Scottish taxpayers to bail them out? There are now just too many universities in Scotland for the number of students, it's time for a cull. The university gravy train has hit the buffers. Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian Wisdom of age? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad My newspapers tell me oldies don't change their voting habits. That is statistics for you – I floated from right to left and then to self-government. Why? Because as I age, I see more and more clearly that Scotland is a country, my country, and until we have our own government, we are at the mercy of a foreign government whose main care is for England. Scunthorpe steelworks is being funded to survive but Grangemouth refinery is left to make do with what the Scottish Government scrapes together for them. No one likes the thought of nuclear leaks, so park the nuclear submarines in Scotland. It happens again and again. It's time for old Scots to encourage the young to run their own country. Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh Double standards The UK Government is taking massive costly action to save the partly Chinese owned steelworks in Scunthorpe and I have to say well done for doing so. However, it is shocking to see that they could not, or did not want to, save the Chinese partly owned oil refinery at Grangemouth, an important facility in Scotland, leaving hundreds unemployed. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ravenscraig was the largest steel strip mill in Western Europe and the UK Government left it to flounder in 1992, leaving hundreds unemployed. Forgive me for being somewhat facetious, is it only me that sees the English facility being saved while the important Scottish facility has been left to close, like Ravenscraig. Our MP, Brian Leishman, has fought hard to save Grangemouth, probably making himself unpopular with his colleagues in London. Had Grangemouth been located in England, I have no doubt that it would have been saved like Scunthorpe. Michael Fraser, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire Not so special Colin McAllister is right that Donald Trump will only have one friend left in Benjamin Netanyahu (Letters, 19 July). This after Marco Rubio's ultimatum to Ukraine and Russia to either accept a ceasefire or the US will 'move on', as it has 'other priorities'. No more US aid and no prospect of peace means Russia has free rein to press on with the war for as long as it takes to defeat Ukraine and advance further into Europe. Trump is 'not a fan' of President Zelensky but both still apparently want to do a mineral deal. Perhaps Zelensky sees it as a sign of tacit support, but Trump has 'a very good relationship' with Putin. Now, however, Trump is 'very frustrated' with Putin's intransigence and the new Cold War looks set to become frigid. In short, an emboldened Putin has humiliated Trump. Rubio is preparing an embarrassing diplomatic retreat under the guise of more pressing priorities, but in reality Trump has failed in his first diplomatic task, to achieve peace in Ukraine 'within weeks'. Pandering to a bully by another bully with ulterior motives rarely achieves anything. Trump's learning there's more to diplomacy than humiliating one side and lauding the other. Europe needs to ignore him and do a trade deal with China. The UK, reliant on US trade since Brexit, needs to deal with the 'fools' and 'horrible people' in the US administration, Trump's words on Ukrainian and Russian leaders thwarting his Nobel Peace Prize chances. How long the special relationship will last is anyone's guess. Neil Anderson, Edinburgh Write to The Scotsman Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
