Shakespeare was a Tory
It is not in the least surprising that the cultural establishment has a very pronounced left-wing bias: the abiding influences of ideas of scientific progress, of Darwinian evolutionary theory, of the Marxist criticisms of capitalism and religion, and the more recent experiences of the Hitlerian tyranny and the profoundly influential Spanish Civil War, •have ensured the cultural respectability of socialism. It is possible that disillusion brought about by knowledge of Stalinism, and the Eastern European and Chinese versions of Communist Party dictatorships may set in. It is also possible that as knowledge of the post-imperial successor governments in Africa becomes digested by the strident anti-imperialists (who, in general, are eager to seize upon the errors of British imperialism but are wilfully blind to the oppression of Russian imperialism and are abject apologists for the corrupt tyrannies of Africa) the cultural establishment will come to adopt a more critical and objective approach to the political problems and situations of contemporary society. There are signs of a more sane and stable and sceptical attitude (often characterised by the cry "a plague on both your houses," which is better than crying for a plague on only one) developing among the young. Meanwhile, however, the left remains in firm and almost unchallenged occupation of the commanding heights of the cultural establishment.
It is usually sufficiently secure, arrogant and intelligent not to boast about its good fortune and privilege. Only rarely does it open its mouth and put its foot in. The public is, in consequence, very much indebted indeed to Mr Trevor Nunn, the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who in a letter to the Times this week described that publicly subsidised body as "a basically left-wing organisation." This admission was delivered as a boast. Mr Nunn, together with Mr David Jones, the director of the company's present production, The Island of the Mighty, was defending that production against the attack on it by the authors of the play, Mr John Arden and his wife Miss Margaretta D'Arcy. Apparently the production is not anti-imperialist enough for the Ardens, who have accused the Royal Shakespeare 'Company of working "in an imperialist atmosphere . . . supported 'by the Tory Government." Mr Nunn and Mr Jones find this "a strange 'accusation to level at a 'basically left-wing organisation "; it seems to them "that at the centre of the whole upsetting controversy is a tension, possibly in the Ardens themselves, between political and social convictions on the one hand and the demands of a complex work of the imagination on the other "; and they are disturbed at finding themselves "involved in a bitter quarrel with one of Europe's most remarkable dramatists." Poor things. They do have a difficult time of it, being basically leftwing but not basically left-wing enough for the Ardens. As for them, the money the Ardens are paid by, and the contract they entered into with, the Company are sufficiently antiimperialist left-wing (even though they flow in part from the Tory Government): the cash and the contract are fine, but not the propaganda, not the art. They take the cash, but want the credit, too.
Mr Angus Maude has resigned as a Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, as well be might, in protest against Nunn's apologetic boast. It would do no harm if the rest of the Governors followed him or, alternatively and better, chose an 'artistic director who was just that; and not a political director besides. Shakespeare, incidentally, was a Tory.
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