Alexis Petridis's article about the decline of gay culture in pop music (Straight and narrow, G2, 29 February) was thoughtful and interesting. Further reasons why it declined: during the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s playing and releasing rock music was viewed as a disreputable occupation by most people in the UK, rock music upset the way the traditional music business operated in London, and the BBC mostly ignored it until 1967. Just like today, the major labels were mostly out of touch with the pop scene. Gay managers such as Parnes, Epstein and Lambert, marginalised by the criminalisation of homosexuality, recognised before most people the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the burgeoning but marginalised early rock music business. They thereby made a huge profit, while ushering in revolutionary changes in the culture worldwide. With the advent of the Woodstock festival as well as the Oasis ladrock that Petridis cites, rock became an accepted and corporate business, and thereafter it wasn't just cultural and social rebels such as homosexuals who saw its potential and sought to participate in it and profit from it. As Jon Savage argued in the article, something was definitely lost in this process, but that was probably inevitable; rock music is no longer the cutting edge.
Harvey G Cohen
Cultural historian, King's College London
• Michael Billington has it pretty much spot on in his list of indications that you may be in for a horribly bumpy evening as a play's cliches unfold (Bad evening alert, G2, 29 February). But he neglects another theatre genre, that of the lousy musical. The first line of a new show, either sung or spoken, often gives you an idea whether you – if not there professionally – should head for the exit in the interval. As a critic in the regions, and later for Teletext and others, two stick out in my memory. Not to mention my craw. In the musical Nell! (about the torrid love life of Charles II's mistress) I recall the curtain going up after the overture and someone declaiming: "All the whores down with the pox, and My Lord expected 'fore midnight," which did not inspire hope in the audience. And gales of laughter followed the initial lines of Barnardo! about the life of the philanthropic doctor. The lights went up to find two elderly ladies in the spotlight. One said: "Where's the doctor tonight?" and the other replied: "Oh, out and about on the streets again, picking up boys." Both West End runs were, if memory serves, days in length. And an exclamation mark in the title is a pretty good guide to the piece being a complete flop. Nell!, and Barnardo! are fine examples, and who can forget Lionel Bart's ill-fated Twang!
Phil Penfold
Doncaster, South Yorkshire