Too London, too mainstream and too establishment

**french frank** · 27-03-14, 10:40

I think she does have a certain axe of her own to grind, though. The only remarkable thing (to me) is that for once all the programming publicity is not about popular entertainment, in one form or another, which is announced in bits and pieces: the new Doctor Who, the new Sherlock, the new Strictly Come Dancing .... It would be a bit poor if now there is a 'push' in the other direction on come all the howls of 'establishment', 'mainstream', London oriented.

The main question (for me) is whether the Beeb has now suppressed the public appetite for 'mainstream' culture by starving people for too long.

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 27-03-14, 10:56

...the great value of Reith's pithy triumvirate is that it transcended bread and circuses .... in fact the BBC has been good information and entertainment but inept and afraid of the social development implications of education in the last forty years or so, having embraced them so strongly in the immediate post war period ...[bog standards eh] ... El Sistema is obvious when you think of it .... why not here? an obvious cause for the BBC? [and fascinating that Abreu was such a plutocratic technocrat, another story]

i must confess to not knowing much of Ms Duffy but thought she made a good point well .... albeit partisan

**Honoured Guest** · 27-03-14, 11:05

An "axe to grind" is the principal point of a newspaper Comment piece! Stella Duffy has hit this nail squarely on the head, and she's not alone. Her view seemed to be shared by Steve Hewlett in yesterday's edition of Radio 4's The Media Show. To be fair to Tony Hall, he is aiming to bring Arts back into the BBC mainstream, and not only "mainstream" arts or "'establishment" arts. But there does seem far too much of the establishment in the outlined plans, particularly with the appointment of Nick Hytner to the Executive Board and with Tony Hall's own ROH history. Obviously, Vicky Featherstone, Rupert Goold, Nick Serota, etc. are intended to bring the lively arts to the BBC (as opposed to the deadly heritage arts) but maybe Stella Duffy has a point in questioning whether, as artistic directors of leading arts institutions, their contemporary liveliness is too much of the arts establishment. We will see ...

**jean** · 27-03-14, 11:09

As Stella Duffy's article was mentioned on the Roger Wright thread, I'll repost some of my reply on that thread here.

Stella Duffy writes:

...Glyndebourne is probably brilliant too; I've not been. Like many people born into working-class families in the 1960s I have never felt I had much access to opera.

That's changed, yes, especially as I work with people who direct and sing opera, but I have the privileged access of someone who works in the arts...

This sort of thing needs challenging as often as it's said.

My childhood in working-class Liverpool was enriched by the visits to the Liverpool Empire of the Welsh National Opera. Access to Glyndebourne was restricted by distance and cost, certainly; but if anyone had given my father the chance to see a Glyndebourne production on screen, he'd have jumped at it. Isn't that offering access to people?

As to Shakespeare, Stella Duffy writes dismissively of

...yet another Shakespeare festival ...

but when she subsequently admires the (excluded) Liverpool Everyman for being truly innovating, she's missed the irony that the newly-rebuilt theatre has just opened with a production of Twelfth Night.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that too many different arguments are being carelessly mixed up here Making the Arts less London-centric would of course include giving a wider platform to the innovative work already being done outside the Capital - but might it not also involve giving the regions more money to do whatever it was they wanted to do, and can't because of financial constraints?

Barry Rutter left the National and went back to Yorkshire to found Northern Broadsides, many of whose truly innovating productions have been of Shakespeare and other 'classics'.

**jean** · 27-03-14, 11:14

Originally posted by Honoured Guest View Post

...Stella Duffy has hit this nail squarely on the head...

If there is indeed a single nail that can be identified, she has not even taken aim at it, let alone hit it anywhere.

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 27-03-14, 11:33

but might it not also involve giving the regions more money to do whatever it was they wanted to do

or absolut! [sorry just discovered all the Krister Henriksson Wallanders on Netflix]

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 27-03-14, 11:39

people like culture quite independently of their social standing; people like high status display especially because of their standing ... the arenas for these two different domains [art and status] to overlap are usually at anywhere with a a Royal prefix and House suffix, but not exclusively so .... serious music, drama, thought ... in a word culture ... is pursued by those who like it ... and most certainly not by the rich or toffs; certainly by the bourgeoisie but also the workers and the unemployed etc ...

the real issue is the conspiracy to confound demographics with Art or Knowledge; both domains have their own imperatives that have no connection with consumption or populations/audiences .... they are domains and communities of practice that strive for virtue independently of nation, class, ethnicity, or ideology .. the BBC and its components must be, inter alia, their servant ...the communal funding and mutuality of ownership both express and demand a civic duty for the BBC that is ill served and malignly influenced by marketing speak ...

the BBC is as fundamental to the British national identity as the NHS; both are in trouble .... and so are we ... we urgently require an authority versed in and pursuing virtues not marketing inconsequentialities, careerist self glorification and the approbation of the corporate gangster elite ... look ma my audience/vote is huge [soto voce: you can feed them crap it's only a circus eh?]

**Honoured Guest** · 27-03-14, 11:47

Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post

the real issue is the conspiracy to confound demographics with Art or Knowledge; both domains have their own imperatives that have no connection with consumption or populations/audiences .... they are domains and communities of practice that strive for virtue independently of nation, class, ethnicity, or ideology .. the BBC and its components must be, inter alia, their servant ...the communal funding and mutuality of ownership both express and demand a civic duty for the BBC that is ill served and malignly influenced by marketing speak ...

Are you saying that, apart from making its output accessible to audiences, the BBC has a fundamental role as a patron of artists and a supporter of artistic practice?

If so, I agree, and I think that's a big part of the case for the Proms, the Performing Groups, the New Generation Artists, and drama production for radio, tv and BBC Films.

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 01-04-14, 08:52

i am saying that but i am also saying that audience size and accessibility would not figure in my success criteria so centrally as they seem to in most debates ... they are important and necessary but secondary to what is being attempted in terms of content scope depth coverage etc ... the most important thing about a license fee is that it pays for what the market will not do both in content and style

Wright has always made this point about R3 as he juggles his complex menus of programmes and schedules ....

the BBC is in a fix; overmanaged, overpaid and overwhelmed by hostility from the booth the public and the commercial media; craven in the face of the Campbell onslaught; how many times do you hear that 'everyone knew' about sexual predation .... i doubt that another member of the Oxbridge gliterati is going to know what to do or will be able to deal with the politics in election season or upgrade the IQ of the Trustees ...

the future of the BBC is discussed today at 1030 am in the House of Commons

**amateur51** · 01-04-14, 09:59

Too many agendas at once, too many axes, etc ....

I enjoy some of Stella Duffy's writing but in this article she hasachieved something new for her, dull predictability.

I agree wholeheartedly with jean's comments.

I'm going to suspend judgement for eighteen months and see what Hallism brings ... only then will I have an opportunity to criticise the reality of the verbiage and good intentions.

But he needn't think that we're not watching/listening - we're keeping our powder dry rather than having a series of conniption fits that amount to "..and me!" carping based on previous experience and little/no evidence.

Perhaps that's what Stella Duffy means to do in this article too - she's getting her retaliation in first?!

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 01-04-14, 10:01

worth reading the Trust Biographies

4 Oxford
1 Cambridge
3 ex hacks
2 Commercial TV Producers
3 Finance/Banking/Economics
3 Regional [academic/local government/marketing]
1 Great & Good [Chair]

Too London [even the Regionals look Whitehall Pets]; Too Establishment and Too Mainstream ... no real people at all; no artists; no scientists; no humanities .... no Trades Unions no mavericks no educationalists ... in fact a very boring totally risk managed bunch of conformists

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 08-04-14, 09:41

on Parliament tv now the HoC considering the future of the BBC