Le prime volte, quando guardavo Sean Hughes in tv, non è ch'io rimanessi granchè colpita dal
suo umorismo cinico e demenziale. Ma col passar del tempo le cose son cambiate. La prima
tappa penso sia stata la sua scelta di mettere come introduzione al suo libro "Sean's book", una
strofa da un testo degli Smiths; "there's more to life than books, you know, but not much more"da
Handsome devil .. a questo punto ero già un po' affezionata a quell'uomo..(pensate, il primo
capitolo del libro si intitolava "come rubare questo libro" ahaah)
Ci sono state poi ulteriori tappe che hanno fatto crescere la mia considerazione nei suoi confronti;
leggere anche cose che rivelavano un po' la persona oltre al comico, alcune interviste.. tipo...
quella in cui Sean è su un taxi e nota come man mano che questo si allontana dal centro di Dublino,
la gente fuori dal finestrino diventa sempre più triste e povera e brutta...poi passa davanti ad una
scommettitoria dove un tipo arrabbiatissimo stà facendo a pezzi una schedina e lì ha questo flash
del tizio che và a casa ubriaco a picchiare la moglie e Sean dentro il taxi piange come un idiota a
quel pensiero. Cose come questa ma poi soprattutto le sue belle prove di attore ecc. ecc.;come
scrittore, poeta uhm, devo dire la verità, il suo stile non è granchè a mio avviso, ma i contenuti ed
in genere le sue consideazioni sono sempre molto interessanti.
Qui sotto vorrei mettervi un suo pezzo tratto da "Essere irlandese a Londra" dove tra battute varie
tipo "essere arrestati è uno degli inconvenienti di avere un accento irlandese ed una borsa stravagante",
fa riflettere su cose tipo il misticismo costruito attorno all'essere irlandesi e a come si svendono e si
mercificano a basso costo non tanto una cultura ma i suoi aspetti più deleteri.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People love the Irish, people want to be Irish, they all have some connection with Ireland, anything
from family to owning some Waterford glass and, boy, they can't wait to tell you about it.
Only yesterday, Steve Wright, the Radio1 DJ, told me his grandfather was Irish. This to me is as
interesting as telling me what he had for breakfast. Incidentally, it was bacon and eggs.
I, like most people, feel you do not have to shout from the rooftops where you are from every
five minutes, yet there is this oddly curious quest for Irishness in people. I would like to take the
same people down the Holloway road at two in the morning of a weekend and see how proud
they are to be Irish then.... Each culture has a horrible underbelly; this is Ireland's, a thuggery of lost
souls, drinking themselves back to the homeland, releasing the frustrations of dead end jobs, home-
sickness and a general apathy which they do not want to think about.
As Pat Joyce says in the play "Patrick's Day", they are "the people who will do anything for Ireland
except live there"...they have forgotten their reasons for leaving and now end up celebrating every-
thing that is crap about our culture. The sad irony is that they are not part of Irish culture any more.
It frightens me when people come up to me and say, "those Saw Doctors are a grat crack". I start
to panic that people are thinking this is what the irish like, then the depression creeps up on you
when you remember that they top the chart regularly in Ireland. I do not want to be accused of
snobbery. Some would argue the Saw Doctors say more to Irish people than Beckett ever did.
Of course they do, but that is more an indication of the sadness of times.
When it comes to the arts I do not care how mindless it is as long as the makers put their heart
and soul into it. It all amounts to taste at the end of the day but I will not be happy until this is
countered by the brilliant aspects of Irish culture seeping through. I don't like the idea of ignorant
people making money from masses of other ignorant people.
I feel it is of vital importance being Irish in London and more importantly as a human being, to help
people think for themselves: people should not be frightened to go against the grain, they should not
be frightened to say the Catholic Church is wrong, that governments are corrupt and that nationalism
kills. I think it is the job of any person in the spotlight to try to give something back to society, not to
cash in from it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ciao, saluti a tutti,
Lucia
![[SM=g27823]](https://im0.freeforumzone.it/up/0/23/5787184.gif)