Maxine Peake’s rejected idea to write a musical about a “northern tripe dynasty” (Betty Boothroyd musical to chart rise from dancer to Commons Speaker, 2 December) is a reminder of Bill Tidy and Alan Plater’s stage version of The Fosdyke Saga, which was exactly that. Performed in London and the north in the early 1980s, it was an exuberant mixture of satire and coarse humour, including a scene where the actors threw tripe at the audience – and usually had it thrown back at them. It also had a marvellous parody of Wordsworth’s Westminster Bridge. Brilliant!
Michael Church
Lincoln
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