THE ROYAL COURT BAN
Anderson's complaint*--Act Two
NIGEL LAWSON
In last Saturday's Times there appeareri most curious letter over the signature of Mr Neville Blond, the chairman of the English Stage Company, which in turn occupies the Royal Court Theatre. Mr Blond did not, of course, write the letter. His services to the theatre and to many other causes are legen- dary. His History of the Rubber Proofed Clothing Industry (his only known published work) is, I feel sure, a classic in its field. But he is seventy-three and a sick man. The...letter was, in fact, written by Mr Lindsay Ander- son, an artistic director of the English Stage Company, and Mr Blond may justly plead diminished responsibility.
The purpose of Mr Anderson's letter was to announce that 'there can be no question of our [i.e. the Royal Court's] renewing invita- tions to his paper [i.e. the SPECTATOR] at pre- sent.' This alone was curious enough, since the Council of the English Stage Company, the theatre's governing body, had met °nisi- three days previously to discuss Mr Ander- son's decision to cease inviting Hilary Spur- ling, our theatre critic, to any Royal Court productions, and had decided (not without some prompting from the Arts Council, which subsidises the Royal Court to the tune of £100,000 a year of taxpayers' money) that the ban should be lifted forthwith. It is diffi- cult to see how a letter from Mr Anderson, even when signed by Mr Blond, can overrule a Council decision.
But still more curious was the reason given for this volte-face. When the Council decided to climb down over the substance of the dis- pute between Mr Anderson and ourselves, it issued (as some sort of a sop to Mr Ander- son) an opaque and ungracious press state- ment which concluded: 'We leave it to the editor of the SPECTATOR to ensure that his dramatic critic's conduct does not disturb the audiences or the actors while in our theatre.' Understandably this at first puzzled the re- presentative of the Press Association to whom it was issued, but he eventually elicited that it was an implied reference to * Anderson's Complaint (m•ndoisonz 'camp- lei*nt) [after Lindsay Gordon Anderson (1923- )]. A disorder in which an innate authoritarian mentality is in conflict with strong iconoclastic urges. The best- known symptom is an acute hypersensitivity to any form of criticism other than that which the patient has deliberately set out to provoke. (See the SPECTATOR, 8 November 1969, pp 63213) the Incident at the Theatre Upstairs. The PA reporter then asked me for my comments on that occasion, to which I replied: 'There is no reason for me to censure Hilary Spurling's conduct in any way. I think it is most dis- courteous to imply that she behaved in any way that is improper.' It was this statement (reported in the Guardian of 4 December) that Mr Anderson adduced as the prime justification for overriding the ESC Council decision and renewing his ban on this jour, nal. Indeed, so monstrous did he consider my reply that he quoted it verbatim in his letter to the Times. Or, rather, almost ver- batim : by what can most charitably be considered (in the widest sense) a Freudian slip, instead of 'censure' he wrote 'censor'.
At this point the gentle reader may well tremble. What could possibly have occurred at the Incident at the Theatre Upstairs that so deeply shocked even the maker of If? The truth had best be told. One evening, in the first week of August, Hilary Spurling went to see a production of Over Gardens Out, a play without an interval that was being per- formed at the Royal Court's small, experi- mental Theatre Upstairs. Finding it, in her opinion, very tedious and of no account, she quietly slipped out between scenes. This she was able to do since, fortunately, her seat was at the end of a row and near the door. That, in its entirety, is the Incident at the Theatre Upstairs—although for the benefit of Mr Anderson, who draws such an im- portant distinction between the behaviour required of a critic who has been given press tickets and the freedom permitted the paying customer, it should perhaps be added that Hilary Spurling had, at the theatre's request, bought her seat.
Now, there is something undeniably piquant about the sight of Mr Lindsay Anderson, the dedicated enemy of all that is established and respectable, suddenly emerging as the misunderstood defender of tradition and propriety in public places— even though no impropriety in fact occur- red. As an exercise in humbug it would be difficult to better the Times letter, but for connoisseurs of the absurd the palm must surely go to the Council meeting itself, when the ten assembled dignitaries ponder- ously discussed the Mr Anderson's complaint against this journal exclusively in terms of the trivial non-incident at the Theatre Upstairs.
For in reality, of course, this non-incident has nothing to do with the case. In the first
place it occurred more than four months ago and no complaint whatever was made at the time. And quite apart from the chronol. ogy, there is the evidence of Mr Anderson's own letter to me when the affair began, explaining his reasons for the ban.
In a letter some 1,250 words long Mr Anderson devoted precisely two mild sentences to Hilary Spurling's conduct at the Theatre Upstairs and then launched into his true motive: . there is a whole area of work at the Royal Court against which she displays re- current prejudice. In particular, she shows a strong and emotional bias against any play with a North country working-class setting, (accusing this theatre of fashionable inverted' snobbery, etc, etc). Considering Mrs Spurt- ing's obvious prejudice against both the author of The Contractor and the tradition from which it springs we decided not to invite her. To save you the trouble of look• ing up references in your files, I will quote some of the evidence that led us to our conclusions . , I hope that after reading these quotations you will understand why we did not invite Mrs Spurling to come to "'The Contractor," ' (My italics)
Indeed I do—and did.
'The truth is that, having decisively I the battle on his own terms (those of censor ship) Mr Anderson has successfully bam boozled the Chairman and a number o other members of the Council of the Englis Stage Company into fighting it again o what he fondly imagines to be their term (those of propriety). Of course, the resul will be the same; there will probably hay to be yet another Council meeting (whin is rather a bore for the members wit Christmas coming up) and the ban wit he lifted again, leaving Mr Anderson an the Royal Court looking even sillier tha they do already.
But when it is all over, and Mr Anderso tas had to climb down for the last time all will not be well. For one thing, it i plain that Mr Anderson's recent appoint ment to an administrative and policy-makin position at the Royal Court was a disastrou error. As he himself explains in the curren issue of Plays and Players, 'I'm the sort person who can only do one thing at a time For example, couldn't be directing anothe play at the same time as fighting this thin out with the press.' Since Mr Anderson is most talented director, at least in the fit world, and in other respects a buffoon, th is clearly a grievous waste of his talents. Nor is this the greatest threat Mr Ander son presents, in his existing capacity, to th success of the Royal Court. In the sa Plays and Players article he makes d that the ban on Hilary Spurling was tended merely as the beginning of som thing more ambitious: 'We may be fort. (sic) to try the experiment of working wit out the press and getting ourselves direct to the public, which is a policy the Co has been discussing for some years.' T eliminate all criticism and be surround solely by sycophants may well be Anderson's dream: for the Royal Court would mean theatrical death.
It is sadly evident that the time has 10 since come for Mr Blond to hand over reins to a younger and more vigorous cha man. There is much for the new man do. He could make a start by inform" Mr Anderson that Britain's third heavily state-subsidised theatre is not go to be run as anyone's private party,
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