Letter: People's theatre

Sir: Who goes to the arts? Once again the ritual lament that the arts are too white and middle classes emanates from a chorus of guilt- ridden, white, middle class voices.

The arts are a good thing: we know this because they tell us, and they tell us because they know what's good for us. With missionary zeal the arts must be taken to the cultural wastelands; opera in the football stadium, Shakespeare in the pub.

I write as a musician who, after 25 years in Manchester, has never set foot inside either Old Trafford or Maine Road. Nor, in those 25 years, have I heard the anguished voices complain that football must shed its male, working-class image and reach out to new audience bases. No-one has brought the thrills of the live match to the Bridgewater Hall or the Royal Exchange Theatre, nor persuaded me that for the cost of a ticket to these venues I could watch United in action.

By all means let's demystify the arts, but let's not be patronising in the process.

GEOFF THOMASON

Stockport, Cheshire