Nick:
"If I go downstairs will he be on the TV I wonder?"
Do you mean to say you missed the three Traveller programmes - tsk - tsk.
Re the Critics Group;
I'm afraid that - with the best will in the world, Ben made numerous wrong assumptions in 'Class Act' - I filled three pages of notes of them while reading it.
"There was confusion about how one joined,"
No there wasn't; people were invited to join if it was thought that the Group's work would benefit them - and vise versa. There were numerous people who felt that they should have been invited and weren't, just as a number of people who were asked declined.
It was Ewan's group and he had the final say in who should be invited. He kept the numbers down to what he believed was manageable for the method of work he was using; the fact that we met in their living room was also a consideration.
If Ben had asked any of us he interviewed we could have cleared up this 'confusion' for him.
"yet some who passed through the group could barely carry a tune"
While the group's main role was work on singing, there were a small number who didn't sing, but who took on other work, research, organisation etc. Everybody was given a chance to sing, but some non singers were valued for their abilities and enthusiasms in other directions.
The group was a private workshop not a public club so the question of reaching a standard for performing wasn't a consideration.
An honest na accurate assessment of the work of the Critics Group has yet to be carried out.
I will happily send you a transcript of the presentation on the group's work I gave at Ewan's 70th birthday symposium.
Jim Carroll