Derision was being heaped on the BBC today after it emerged that the broadcaster had spent £1 million on training managerial staff how to talk to angry staff.
The Corporation engaged the talents of React Acting For Business, whose actors trained bosses in role-playing scenarios. In one situation, the thespians played angry staff who refused to move from London to the new BBC HQ in Salford.
Said one BBC insider: "These courses are considered a total and utter joke. It's like something from The Office."
But local actress Bunty Rattigan-Pinter said: "Oh darling! What a simply wonderful idea.
"Those poor people all having to move to the north - they must be extremely angry and upset. But can you imaging how soothed they would be if someone just stood in from of them and in their best Johnny Gielgud voice asked, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' How could they remain furious?"
"Of course, one could always bore an angry mob to sleep with a couple of pages from Godot, then do a runner!"
