Publishing
More matter, less art
Paul Johnson
A few weeks ago in Stockholm I was told that a Swedish university now offers full honours-degree courses in 'Arts Administration'. Not surprising, really, when you learn that every seat at every performance of the Stockholm Opera gets a taxpayer's subsidy of £30. We haven't quite reached that stage here, but the arts business must now rival race relations as Britain's leading growth industry. Not that the way of an arts administrator is an easy one. Writers have always been difficult fellows. But at least, in the 18th century, there was such a thing as gratitude. Informed that George III had been pleased to award him a pension of £300 a year, Dr Johnson replied: 'The English language does not afford me terms adequate to my feelings on this occasion. I must have recourse to the French. I am ',Metre with His Majesty's goodness'.
These days there is not much penetration in literary circles, at any rate of that kind. The Arts Council's current grant is the biggest ever received. But its distribution has produced uproar and demands for the 'resignation of Sir Roy Shaw, its SecretaryGeneral, and Charles Osborne, its Literary Director. The decision to scrap the National Book Award § (£110,000 in 1980-81) has caused, the Guardian reported, 'more anger among many writers than anything else since the literature department was founded in 1966'.
A sore point is that a writer cannot actually thrust forward his begging-bowl himself; he must get a suitable 'sponsor' to do it for him. Some time ago the Arts Council imprudently commissioned a Mr Jim McGuigan, a sociologist, to write a report on its methods. His findings have not been published (i.e. they have been 'suppressed') but enough has been leaked to fuel the wrath of those writers who feel the taxpayer owes them a living. McGuigan, the Guardian reported, found that a former Council Literature Director, having sponsored successful grant-applications himself, had in turn received a writer's grant after leaving the Council; and 16 people had received grants either before or after serving on the literature panel. McGuigan called the procedure 'a closed system'. He had discovered — horrors! — that most of the recipients lived in London and the south of England and, worse still, that they were 'of middle-class origin'. Sociologist Jim recommended 'direct applications without sponsors'.
The literary statesmen were not having that, of course. Publisher John Calder, writing to the Guardian 'as an occasional sponsor', hurried to the rescue of Osborne. McGuigan's proposal, he said, would mean all 4,000 members of the Writers' Guild and the Society of Authors rattling their bowls at the same time. Without exception they 'see themselves as new James Joyces'. The 'really creative writer' had to be sorted out from 'the run of the mill' by 'a sponsor of reputation and integrity' (like himself). As for Osborne, 'I can only express admiration for the skill with which Mr Osborne does his difficult job, the judgment with which he has selected the best recipients for aid, and the modesty and economy that he has brought to a thankless and almost impossible task.'
Not a trace of irony in this, I may say: humour does not often rear its head in the literary corridors of power. At Goldsmith's College, a fortnight ago, Roy Shaw and Richard Hoggart, who is vice-chairman of the Council and the college's warden, faced an angry mob of subsidised show-biz folk and students, objecting to the Council's withdrawal of grants from 41 companies. The Stage reported 'acrimonious exchanges', including an accusation from Makki Marseilles, described as 'an unemployed director', that the cuts were 'sheer sham'. 'If I thought that was true I would resign', said Shaw. 'About time you did', replied Marseillies, to a 'general murmur of approval from the audience'. Hoggart denied he had said, `If Michael Cross had kept his mouth shut, he and his company might be back next year.' But he too was called on to resign by a student spokesman, Beth Wagstaff, on the grounds that 'many students of Goldsmith's would be seeking jobs in the arts' and Hoggart had done 'a great disservice to the college and students through his involvement in the cuts'. Another disgruntled director, Ed Berman, after a 'noisy exchange', was told by Shaw that 'the Council's offices are the best place to discuss his case'.
Berman evidently does not agree. The Stage, in what it termed an 'exclusive', reported that, from 25 May to 6 June, he is organising a 'courtroom drama' in which 'hundreds of theatre groups and performers' will 'subject the Arts Council and its policies to a marathon public trial'. It will 'use real barristers and solicitors' and will be 'deadly serious'. Important witnesses will be subpoenaed and it is hoped Norman St John Stevas and his successor as Arts Minister, Paul Channon, will agree to give evidence.
The 'show trial' will take place in a place called the Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn, and each evening a jury will be selected from the audience.
Berman's idea, and good luck to him, is to gouge out of the Arts Council, under cross-examination, exactly what are the reasons why some geniuses get the money and others don't. He hopes to shame the Council staff into the witness box, and he begs `disaffected members', like the Council cleaner who 'leaked high-powered secret plans two years ago', to supply 'confidential documents about the Arts Council's work ings'. He told The Stage: 'All moles welcome'.
Is everybody else welcome? I'd like to see those 4,000 would-be James Joyces converging on the Tricycle, demanding the blood of Osborne, Calder and other 'sponsors of reputation and integrity'. And why not those two men who, when last heard of, were carrying a plank around East Anglia? And the staff of the defunct New Review, once described by this journal as 'the British Leyland of the little magazines'? And Gay Sweatshop? And those energetic 'creative writers' from the Notting Hill Carnival, another recipient? Good show-trial material there, I'd say. After all Mr Berman's happening is, to to speak, 'on the house': it is being financed, to the tune of £1,000, by none other than the Arts Council itself. Penetre indeed!
Previous page
