Deluded dramas suffer identity crisis
The central metaphor in Al Smith's Diary Of A Madman is about the layers of paint on the Forth Rail Bridge. Pop Sheeran is one of a long line of South Queensferry painters who have worked steadily over the decades adding layer upon layer until the girder beneath seems like ancient history.
University of Edinburgh student Matthew White is dismissive of this approach. Fresh from a material science course, he’s arrived with a newfangled glass-composite paint that will stick only to metal. For it to work means sanding away all the previous layers.
As Sheeran is an ardent Scottish nationalist with a Braveheart fixation, and as White is an English arriviste symbolising common sense and modernity, there is only one conclusion we can reach from this.
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