SIR - Responding to Wednesday, August 20 letter from Jean Harris, we would like to make it clear that the production Of All the People in All the World staged in St Martin's Parish Centre was extremely well received. The vast majority of visitors appeared to agree with the playwright David Edgar who tweeted "Of course informative/shocking, but why so MOVING?"
Contrary to Ms Harris's perception the piece involved one grain of rice (not one gramme) representing one person.
Clearly using food stuffs for art is a provocative choice so before booking the piece we confirmed that the same rice is retained for all the show's UK presentations. Abroad all the rice re-enters the human food chain and so in North America alone 67 tonnes of rice has been donated to food banks. We are sorry we did not make this fact clear to Ms Harris at the time causing her such moral concern.
Ultimately world hunger is caused by an inequity of distribution not a lack of food.
War, greed and social injustice cause hunger, art does not. Of All the People in All the World forcefully addressed many of these issues and we are proud to have shared this wonderful piece with our community.
ELIZABETH YARKER St Martin's Church
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