Cancelled show moved to imaginary Shropshire town
One of the cultural jewels of Market Drayton – the town where your ‘umble scribe grew up – is the Festival Drayton Centre. However, in those days it was Frogmore Road Primitive Methodist chapel, a venue where my late mother took to the pulpit as a lay preacher when I was a child.
Last Thursday Iranian-British comedian and actor Omid Djalili pulled out of a show at the Centre due to “personal threats due to the situation in Israel“, as reported by the BBC.
The BBC did manage to get the essentials of the story correct. However, one significant national news outlet did not.
Step forward The Independent, once a decent broadsheet newspaper that refused to publish trivia about the so-called royal family, but now sadly reduced to a badly researched news website with irritating properties and mediocre content.
In its rendition of the story, The Independent wrote as follows:
On Thursday (19 October), Djalili was scheduled to perform at the Festival Drayton Centre in West Drayton, Shropshire. However, the show was pulled hours before its scheduled opening due to safety concerns for the star.
No gazetteer of Shropshire features such a place as West Drayton. Whilst Market Drayton itself consists of two parishes – Drayton in Hales and Little Drayton (also known as Drayton Parva. Ed.), but of an occidental Drayton, there’s not a sign.
Within the polluting embrace of London’s M25 orbital car park there is the London suburb of West Drayton, whilst another village of the same name exists in Nottinghamshire.
Your correspondent notes that the Independent piece was written by a ‘culture reporter and reviewer‘ writing mostly for titles based within that there London, so perhaps the geographical ignorance can be excused. 🙂