Anyone here ever 'done' Speakers Corner?

For a non-londoner like me, who's been there and worked there enough to know my way around, I've never taken in "Speakers Corner" as an audient, let alone as a Speaker.

I've passed it obviously but not when it's been 'on' (it's a one-day-a-week thing, right?). For something that's meant to represent 'free speech' in this country, I dread to think what the current contentious issues are.

Then again, is it just a precursor to good old ILX?

been a while since i’ve been there but it’s been mainly religious speakers/zealotry for a while i think.

Last time I went there

* A communist
* Two Christian fundamentalists
* A Muslim fundamentalist
* A man with some sort of mental illness, really not sure what he was trying to say

Productive dialogue was pretty thin on the ground

I’ve been through it numerous times and it’s pretty depressing: mostly religious fundamentalism, and strong evidence that it doesn’t make you peaceful and happy.

The heyday of more varied characters such as ‘Jesus Jellett’ and Bill Ubi Dwyer seems long gone.

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/jesus-hyde-park-dgulp.jpg

I walked through there when I visited London 20 years ago. All I remember was a Christian fundamentalist delivering some horrible harangue while a couple young middle-eastern boys bent over in front of him and blew raspberries.

There was a short bit on "Talking Pictures" about sixties London, had a piece on Speakers Corner.

From what mfktz says, it's not changed much since 1969

I went there once with a young nephew who clapped his hands over his ears and demanded to leave. I think he had a point.

Anyway this seems as good a place as any to link this article about the aforementioned Jesus Jellett: https://medium.com/@JPRobinson/the-mystery-of-jesus-the-naked-hippie-dancer-9822c0da8765

* A communist
* Two Christian fundamentalists
* A Muslim fundamentalist
* A man with some sort of mental illness, really not sure what he was trying to say

just the one person with mental illness hmm