A land of puritans, snobs and socialists

Martin Vander Weyer on the British idea that businessmen are by nature greedy, heartless, incompetent or dishonest — or all four

Our local arts festival this summer included a community opera with a large cast of children and teenagers, playing to a capacity audience of their families and friends. The show was so full of joy and energy that I came out with tears in my eyes — but also a feeling of unease. The problem was ideological: Maggio’s Magic — book and lyrics by Peter Spafford — was a theatrical triumph, but it was also a vivid parable of the perceived evils of capitalism, a reinforcement in all those young minds of an age-old British prejudice against the profit motive.

The elderly Maggio keeps his puppets in a dilapidated inner-city warehouse, whose owner wants to evict him so that she and a gaggle of women in black representing Mildew Developments can exploit the site.