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Why is the Dome Doomed?There are numerous reasons. It didn't help that the press took against it from the start, but that was not enough to damn it. After all, the public ignore the pundits or reviewers when it they feel they are wrong. The average (wo)man in the street has a healthy disbelief in what (s)he reads in the papers, especially when it is clearly comment and not news. It was partly that the politicians were so enthusiastic: if there's anyone that Joe Public believes to be a less trustworthy than a journalist, it's a politician. But even that wasn't the main reason: it was that yet again the politicians totally misjudged the mood of the public, something both parties have become remarkably adept at doing over the last couple of decades! And this was due to shallow thinking: the Great Exhibition was a massive success with everyone, so clearly a modern equivalent would be too. If the Dome shows the great achievements of the past hundred years, if it shows the greatness of the human spirit, then people will be inspired by it as they were by the Great Exhibition. What this thinking fails to take into account is that, just as life has changed beyond recognition, so have people. Television and the Internet bring modern developments into our living rooms as soon as they happen, if not before. We don't need an exhibition or anything of that nature to bring these things to us. And if we do, then it's likely there'll be something in a town or city not too far away, accessible for free or, at least, for a reasonable charge. Museums, to which entry is generally free, have become more interactive and hands-on: the old dry and dusty image is vanishing, and vanishing quickly. And then there are places like the Visitors' Centre at Sellafield, where the most fascinating and exciting (even if you don't like them!) developments of modern technology can be experienced rather than just viewed, and not only are such places free, they actually almost beg you to come to them! We are not used to having to pay entrance fees (let along big entrance fees) for something which is educational. So what's this got to do with theatre? Those who have visited the Dome, whether they liked it or not, are united in one thing: their enthusiasm for the show in the central arena. It's a piece of theatre (in the broadest sense of the word) on a grand scale: spectacle, drama and breathtaking skill combine to thrill everyone, even those of us who have just seen extracts on TV. I don't know about you, but I get a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that the one thing in this sorry mess that everyone agrees is worthwhile is a piece of theatre! So when's it going to close? I suspect that the government will keep it going to the end of the year, just to save face, unless something particularly bad happens before then. But it's doomed to be a failure and come nowhere near its planned visitor total for the year. It'll hang round the government's neck like an albatross. Expect lots of statements that they only kept it going when they came to office because so much had been spent on it by the previous government! Articles Indices:
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