So why is it so bleedin expensive? A family of 2.2 going to the ballet is going to cost you just shy of £250 plus your drinks at the interval etc. Which bit of society can afford that? Or more importantly why are the unbalanced part of the society subsidising a nicety that only the "balanced" side of society can afford to go to?
Not sure which ballet your 2.2 family is attending here. If I take my girlfriend and daughter to the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden to watch some people singing and dancing its probably going to cost me £300 for flights, £200 for hotel, £100 for cheap seat tickets with another £200 on top for dinner, travel passes, trains, taxi's etc and thats before I've popped into Reiss or Hugo Boss to buy a new shirt and a pair of strides for another 200 sheets. So I don't get much change out of a grand for that excursion.
Conversely if I go to the Jersey Opera House with the same group to watch say The Nutcracker by the Moscow State Ballet I can do pre theatre dinner, tickets and taxi home all for under £100 and my enjoyment is no less then if I was in the west end. I don't think in this day and age that's unreasonable, especially when on a different occasion I (and I'm no different from any other guy in my 30's regardless of job status) meet up with a few mates after work on Friday where between us we could easily spend twice that on beers, wines, steaks and taxis. Its all a question of perceived value.
The other point is that a lot of people still seem to have a chip on their shoulder about those that attend cultural events, they see them as poncey highbrow and elitist types. This is frankly the biggest load of horseshit I've ever heard. All the research done by Arts Council England shows that there is a very even demographic spread across UK audiences from pope to dustman and when you go behind the curtain (in Jersey at least) where there is a very strong amateur tradition you will find the Advocates wife's frantically changing sets during the interval shoulder to shoulder with a manual worker and the fella who works in Begin's Shoes. But that's not to say there aren't culture snobs out there, I know quite a few and usually they sit on various management committees and do so more for their own social standing than any practical desire to see society become more informed and aware, its just that this is a very easy steriotype to trot out when trying to run down the real value of culture to society as a whole.
And I agree with Sheriff Forskitt - The Bailiff's speech sucked, that was his low point.
Now where did I put that copy of Razzle?
