GSS wrote: "it would seem we all agree that the merit of the musician should be the deciding factor in whether someone gets booked"

Not sure if I can agree with this statement, because I don't quite understand the point about "merit". Given the limited number of paid gigs and the plethora of competent - and occasionally inspired -musicians on the 'folk scene', how can this work? Is there a clear hierarchy of "merit", where musicians are in some kind of struggle for survival, decided by market forces?

Can we say always say, for example, that concertina player X is of greater musical merit than musical saw player Y? How can we tell? And if we do decide that X is better there may still be a night when we're gagging for the musical saw ... and only a saw will do.

(Sorry, it's late - or early - not sure which.)

But I think the show was a grand idea - and it needed to focus on its constituency to make its political point. Booking a so-called heterosexual concertina (or saw) player into the show would have nullified its raison d'etre - which was QUEER, rather than normative.