Madam, – In his response to Peter Crawley’s review of his concerts at the Gaiety Theatre, Chris De Burgh (The Arts, September 11th) refers to a number of words commonly associated with his name such as “Small man, warbly tenor . . . mawkish balladeer . . . cringe factor”, etc. Perhaps angry, mean-spirited and no sense of humour should now be added to this list. – Yours,
Madam, – I attended the Chris De Burgh concert at the Gaiety which Peter Crawley reviewed recently and which Chris De Burgh so passionately responded to. I was surprised, to say the least, when reading the review. Had the journalist been to a different concert? Had he jettisoned any objectivity at the theatre door? It appears so.
I can accept the fact that he was obviously not a fan of Chris De Burgh’s music, but to pepper the review with boring and trite clichés such as “cheesy” and “MOR Mulch” and to offer us his amazing revelation that Mr De Burgh has an “indelible association with a time of shoulder pads and enormous hair” is bordering on the kind of writing that I might expect to read in certain tabloids.
A number of us attended this gig and enjoyed it thoroughly. Throughout the concert the crowd rose to its feet and sang along to every word of the older hits and, believe it or not, recent songs. After well over 30 years of making records (who manages that nowadays?) it would be nice if music journalists in Ireland could approach a gig, although Mr De Burgh is neither “hip” nor “cool”, with at least a hint of objectivity. Alas, it is left to us mere mortals to follow George Michael’s advice and “Listen without prejudice”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As a long-time inhabitant of the “theatre world” that Chris De Burgh refers to in his already infamous letter (The Arts, September 11th), I am writing to say that I, for one, don’t loathe your chief theatre critic, and sometime music critic, Peter Crawley.
I disagree with him regularly, I think he’s often far too clever for his own good (he is undeniably clever, damn him), and, like all theatre producers, my rage against him, and other critics, has often reached operatic proportions. But I don’t loathe him. In fact I like and admire him. I admire his passion for Irish theatre and his deep commitment to an art form that we all hope will continue to play an urgent role in our ongoing dialogue as a nation and a people.
And for that reason I would respectfully suggest that in the future you refrain from publishing the kind of unacceptable personal attack that people from our world are sometimes tempted to place, ill-advisedly I would suggest, in the public domain. – Yours, etc,