in-yer-face provocateurs of the art scene [whose] 1997 Sensation exhibition was an immensely influential example of that 1990s sensibility". Ridley has claimed that he knew "most of the people that went on to be in the controversial Sensation show". Although Ridley's early plays were produced years before this exhibition, he states that his plays share the same "sensibility" as Sensation, particularly in the plays' use of imagery. Sierz in part attributes Ridley's originality as a playwright from him training at an art school instead of attending a drama school or a theatre's 'new writing programme'. Sierz therefore feels that the history of new writing during the 1990s should not start with The Royal Court Theatre, but "perhaps, more accurately" should look instead at "St Martin's College of Art and Goldsmiths College. Culturally, there's clearly a nexus between the YBAs, Cool Britannia and Brit Pop." The murder of James Bulger Another "mighty moment" that Sierz attributes to the development of in-yer-face theatre is the real-life murder of James Bulger, who was only two-years-old when he was abducted, tortured and killed by two ten-year-old boys in 1993. Sierz states that this was "arguably a key event" of 1990s culture. In 2004 the playwright Mark Ravenhill gave a lecture entitled 'A Tear in the Fabric: the James Bulger Murder and New Theatre Writing in the 1990s'. In this lecture Ravenhill explained how the Bulger murder prompted him to make his "first attempt at writing a play". Ravenhill believes that the murder may have inspired other playwrights from the 1990s: "I wonder if I was alone? I doubt it. I wonder how many other people there were who started to write with that CCTV picture of the boy led away somewhere in their head? […] How many of the young British playwrights of the 1990s — the so-called in-yer-face playwrights — were driven, consciously or unconsciously, by that moment?" Sierz also states that the murder "resulted in calls for the censorship of films, of television and of art works" because "in 1994 the judge in the boys' trial explained the murder by speculating that they had been exposed to a violent video, 'Child's Play 3', this created a media storm which, I would argue, is the cultural context for the media uproar over Blasted". Stephen Daldry at The Royal Court Theatre Sierz cites the programming by artistic director Stephen Daldry at The Royal Court