STEVE ATTRIDGE (WTF)

Writer, Performer, Speaker, Teacher, YouTuber

Steve worked as a Performance Poet, has had over 100 TV programmes broadcast, 8 stage plays produced and 26 books published. He has performed one man 5 star shows at the Edinburgh Festival, most notably Dick in Space and Ron the Plumber. He has lectured and run writing and drama workshops all over the world. He is an inveterate YouTuber, speaking on Freedom of Speech, politics, the arts and education (Catch some on https://www.youtube.com/@steveattridge5919/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0)

He has been cancelled professionally and personally numerous times for speaking what he believes to be the truth and these days wouldn’t have it any other way. He has 3 RTS Awards, 2 Writer’s Guild Awards, 2 BAFTA nominations, Best Film Award, Eric Gregory Award for Poetry, Best Brit Film, a Radio 4 Travel Writing Award. He says that given that nearly everyone is given an award these days in the hope of shutting them up they don’t mean much. His latest memoir, GOD, ROD STEWART & ME, is a raucous memoir of three reckless years in his youth. See more at https://steveattridge.com/ and at https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Steve-Attridge/author/B001KDF3OO?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

He is appalled at the state of the nation and the murder of truth.

My talk at the Festival: Approx one hour and 15 mins but could be made shorter or longer to suit. Seriously intentioned but with light touches.

The Murder of Education and the Arts and How to Resurrect Them: a quick jog through some of the lunacies that proliferate daily, such as the belief that children should be allowed to identify as animals and be treated by veterinarians rather than GPs, the belief that the history of Britain is only about slavery, the belief that weather is racist, the belief that saying the best qualified person should get the job is a microaggression. I outline how children are being deprived of historical knowledge, which means they have no idea of where they came from and the huge struggles there have been to create a basically decent culture and society, and how simplistic critical race theories and gender theories and warping minds. Ways in which opinion replaces debate and critical

thinking is outlawed and replaced with ideology. I talk about how these damaging strains run from nursery schools up to universities, about how the funding of higher education is politically motivated, and how propaganda and ideology eclipse free speech and enquiry. Related to this is how we are told to view the world by a mainstream media apparently dedicated to the dismantling of history and culture, and ultimately, itself. The arts, at one time a flawed but useful arena for voicing dissent and asking serious questions and creating imaginative flight, are being dumbed down and enslaved by a predominantly left wing series of dogmas. The arts are being strangled by woke concerns that undermine the very purpose of the arts – to encourage wonder and questioning and examining what is best and worst in humanity.

I will give examples and illustrations throughout – some chilling and some unintentionally hilarious.

Steve Attridge 2024