Back in the ante-diluvian days some thirty years ago when I first went online (with Compuserve, accessed through my trusty old US Robotics 16k dial-up modem), I asked the question in a music chatroom "are DIY music theatre performing groups a peculiarly British phenomenon?". I received many international responses from countries as far afield as Japan, the US and Switzerland assuring me otherwise. However, these days it's my impression that such grass-roots desire to perform (and come to see) live opera and music theatre is dying in the UK, and I was wondering if others feel the same, and is it true elsewhere in the world?