Just yesterday I was reporting here on the story that Westminster Trading Standards are calling the producers of The Shawshank Redemption to account for selectively quoting from Charles Spencer’s Daily Telegraph review of the play, when they extracted a comment he made of the original film and putting it up front-of-house as if it were written about the play. But Charlie himself suggests in a column in today’s Telegraph that “Going to court would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The verbal equivalent of a rap across the knuckles would suffice.”
The only people who would benefit, he says, would be the lawyers. “Needless to say, the legal profession, sniffing healthy fees, takes a different view. Neil Adleman, a partner at the media and entertainment law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said the prospect of prosecution ‘was a wake-up call to the West End, and should not be ignored’. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he? His firm might get the brief.”
Charlie takes a more measured approach.
“My view is that we already suffer from far too much pettifogging legislation, from both Europe and our own dear government, and that good sense should prevail, rather than threats of prison and massive fines. Producers have probably been playing around with quotes since Shakespeare’s days at the Globe, and surely this should be a case of caveat emptor. Don’t believe everything you see on the billboards. Read the full review. That’s what my trade is here for.”
The trouble is, few people do read the full reviews nowadays. They read the star rating. (Charlie’s own paper, alone amongst the major publications, takes the interesting step of putting the rating at the end of the review rather than the beginning, thus hopefully encouraging readers to read the words first!) And the good thing is that star ratings, at least, can’t typically be manipulated on front-of-house boards or in press ads - though there was an interesting case in March after Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened where press ads appeared trumpeting the four-star overnight notices of the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Evening Standard and Daily Express. Except that the Daily Expres review had in fact been a five star review! As I quoted Simon Edge, the critic concerned, saying at the time, “I was bemused to see my five-star downgraded to four. Perhaps the producers don’t think their own show deserved that extra star, but I would prefer it if they let me be the judge of my own rating!”
But Charlie also points out a further longer-term danger about bringing in the long arm of the law. “What goes around, comes around. How long will it be before the EU introduces legislation that insists that every theatre, film and book review should be fair and balanced, thus outlawing vituperative copy that stops just short of the libellous. Having been on the receiving end of threatening solicitors’ letters, I know my learned friends would love such legislation. They could make a fortune. Let’s keep the lawyers and the legislators out of it, and let the traditional showbiz rough and tumble continue on its merry, unfettered way. As my dear old editor at the Stage newspaper used to say whenever matters turned serious in the office: ‘No one’s dead. It’s only rock and roll’.”
Misquotes and star ratings are indeed not life and death; but the consequences of pedophilia may be that, or at least seriously damaged emotional lives. In a column in today’s Independent, Johann Hari duly takes issue with both Alan Bennett and Stephen Fry for their apparent defence of the practice in their plays The History Boys and The Habit of Art (both Bennett) and Latin (Fry) respectively.
As Hari writes, “What I object to is not the compassionate depiction of these men, but the claim that the victims are unharmed, or even enjoy it. This suggestion has featured in the work of several writers I normally admire. In Bennett’s previous play The History Boys, a 50-something teacher called Hector routinely gropes his 17-year-old pupils’ genitals - and they react either with flattered amusement, or by longing to be the next to be groped. The headmaster who objects is depicted as a prejudiced buffoon. The most sympathetic boy in the class - Posner - also grows up to be a pederast himself, who finds it hard to resist groping his pupils.”
He goes on to say, “In interviews, Bennett makes it clear he is on Hector’s side, saying: ‘I’ve been criticised for not taking this seriously enough. I’m afraid I don’t take that very seriously if they’re 17 or 18. I think they are actually much wiser than Hector. Hector is the child, not them.’ He added that good teaching is inherently ‘erotic’. In his new play, Bennett takes this analysis further. Benjamin Britten, the composer, is one of the main characters. He was sexually attracted to young boys - 13 was his perfect age - and throughout his life he picked out choirboys, gave them a special role in performing his music, and lavished adoration on them. According to the book Britten’s Children, he appeared naked before them, snuggled with them in bed, although he didn’t actually have sex with them. As with Michael Jackson, the parents seemed to know what was going on, and acquiesce. Yet Bennett, in his introduction to the play, expresses only one problem with this. ‘A boy whose voice suddenly broke could find himself no longer invited … which would seem potentially far more damaging to a child’s psychology than too much attention.’ He also spares a thought for the ‘fat boys and ugly boys’ who were never admitted to this sanctum.”
Hari goes on to reveal that he knows that “Bennett and Fry are wrong, because when I was a teenager, I was subjected to the persistent sexual advances of an older man in a position of authority over me. I managed to escape the situation without being abused, but I know other boys did not. There can indeed be an initial element of being flattered, or even excited - but it is also married to feelings of fear and revulsion that somebody who is supposed to have offered safety is offering danger. The adolescent is not in a position to make an informed choice. It is healthy for adolescents to explore their sexualities among themselves - but when an adult intrudes into this process, it can damage their sexual development with consequences for the rest of their lives.”
And as he concludes, “The taboos protecting young people from sexual abuse took a long time to build up. They have to be protected from erosion, because Alan Bennett is terribly wrong - the ‘real children’ are never old men who want to cop a feel of adolescents.”
This is a very important debate, and it is fascinating that it is a play that has fuelled it. Just the other day I was saying how good it is when theatre makes the front pages; and sometimes it also makes the inside news pages, too, as when Ian Hart “lost it” earlier this week and verbally assaulted an audience member who he thought had been talking during the performance. But hitting the comment pages is even more significant, since it turns the stuff (and habit) of art into a national debate.
Hari in his piece rather naughtily omits that Latin! was written by Stephen Fry while he was still a student at Cambridge.
In the piece he says Latin! was "published in 1992" which, whilst not incorrect, does imply that the quotes he uses in his piece to chastise Fry were written by a man in his 30's rather than by a very young man. I believe this puts a rather different slant on Hari's interpretation.
Which just isn't cricket.
while I would hardly want a EU directive stating that all reviews should be fair and balanced ( that might call for all reviewers to be fair and balanced and that certainly would be a challenge) ; I would think that the individual reviewers would object to their names and quotes or in this case , misquotes being used - if I see that Charlie Spencer thinks The Shawshank Redemption is thrilling or something like that and I see it and it stinks - I'll think: what was Charlie Spencer thinking? And then let's suppose another mediocre theatrical event comes along and they misquote Charlie Spencer again, I 'll think again: what was Charlie Spencer thinking and the third time they do it I'll tend not to beleive anything that Charlie Spencer likes ( or is quoted as liking). So then when that amazing little play appears somewhere that he wants to champion ( for real) I'll think : No way. This from the man that thought The Shawshank Redemption was a masterpiece - sorry, I'm not interested. In other words, surely a critic's personal integrity should come into play rather than their vanity of seeing their names on the boards in front of the theatre or in advertisements?
If we are calling people to account for things they wrote earlier, then we might remind Johann Hari that he wrote stout defences of the Iraq War when it was being prepared and launched... and only switched to a critical viewpoint when Britain began, ehem, losing.
I read that article in telegraph, I agree these days going to court will only benefit lawyers in these sort of cases.