Plans for what’s described as “an evening of titillation” at the imminent Belfast Film Festival have been questioned by a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The festival, which runs from March 26th to April 4th, plans to screen Flesh Gordon, the cult softcore 1974 erotic spoof on Flash Gordon, with a live translation into Ulster-Scots performed by the trio of Fanny Flood and brothers Roger and Phil McCrackin. The event, scheduled for April 2nd, is titled Shockin'ly Spaiked O'er Smot (Badly Dubbed Porn) Live.
“Porn is porn is porn is porn, and whether it is done Ulster-Scots-style, well, it really doesn’t come into it,” culture, arts and leisure committee member David McNarry MLA told the BBC. “This event has presumably been given funding and all this kind of thing does is make people look all the harder at an application the next time it comes round. The committee wasn’t aware of this, but the department must have been.”
A festival spokeswoman responded: "Contrasting Ulster-Scots against a coarse and roguish piece of film such as Flesh Gordonwill optimally highlight the extent of the detachment between the culture of the tongue and the culture of the film."
Ulster-Scots is spoken by an estimated 35,000 people in Northern Ireland and has enjoyed a revival since 1992, when the Ulster-Scots Language Society was formed to protect and promote the dialect.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/SJQTLMCMMRC2PLALXUKEWWS6HU.png)