What’s worth watching: spring/summer 2017

This is a bit later than normal owing to all the Brighton Fringe coverage I’m in the thick of writing, but there’s also a new season of stuff coming up in the north-east. Annoyingly, I can’t be sure this is the full list because Live and Northern Stage don’t announce their new programmes until later this month, so there’s a chance they might have a gem up their sleeves that I don’t yet know about. If they do, I will add this to the list as soon as I know about it.

Yes, I know it’s June so some people might say “How can this include spring”, but I’m using the atronomical definition where spring runs until the summer solstice on June 21st, so ner.

Remember, a cross section, not an exhaustive list. A cross section, not an exhaustive list. A cross section, not an exhaustive list. That’s the only rule I need highlight, rest of the rules are here. So, what is there to look forward to?

Chris’s hierarchy of appealing to authority

Okay, in a very rare break for this blog, I’m going to write about someone that’s not theatre-related at all, or even arts-related. This is something that frequently crops up in arguments about the arts, but no more or less than anywhere else. But with an general election coming and the inevitable rise in poorly-researched claims to back up your favourite party, it’s about time I said something about this. I’m even going to be completely serious here are refrain from snarky asides that I usually make.

The practice I’m referring to is appealing to authority. This is where people attempt to back up their claims by citing the research of some sort of expert who is meant to back up the position. Now, in theory, this should be a good way of proving a point, showing someone else who knows what they’re doing and has done the research. But, in practice, this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, and instead is used as a tactic to mislead people into believing their claim is proven when it isn’t. If you are doing it yourself, chances are you don’t realise you’re doing it because you are hearing what you want to hear and not thinking about whether this really supports you are strongly as I think it does.

So, as an attempt to help people appealing to authority to come up with decent arguments, and to enable the rest of us to spot the hogwash, I have taken inspiration from the legendary Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement. Using this model, I am pleased to introduce Chris’s Hierarchy of Appealing to Authority.