Doubtful Detta...
AFTER THE Lord Mayor's Show, the Bar- bican. Lord Mayor Christopher Walford must take off his tricorn hat and scratch his head, wondering what to do about the City's most capacious hole in the ground after Lloyd's. It needs a new operator, for Detta O'Cathain, the bold baroness from the Milk Marketing Board, has run out of friends. That is a pity, for some of her ene- mies were well worth annoying. The Barbi- can was conceived as the City's gift to the nation, and a costly present it was, too, budgeted at £2 million, coming out at £176 million and failing to cover its costs by £9 million a year. Add £3 million in grants to the orchestra and the theatre company, and £3 million in depreciation, and the extra £10 million now being spent to make the place less labyrinthine. All this gave some people the idea that the City was so rich that it ought to be proud to keep them in comfort. Everyone was happy under these arrangements, except perhaps for the pay- masters and the customers, and what did they know about it? Her ladyship went in to sort this out. She fired the arts manager she had inherited, hired another who lasted three months, and then tried to do the job herself, doubling it with her job as the Bar- bican's administrator. This gave her a full hand of enemies, and has proved fatal to her. Now Bernard Harty, the City Cham- berlain (lesser cities would call him a trea- surer) must hold the fort until the City fathers find a new administrator, who will be required to find a new arts manager. They will need to show — what Detta O'Cathain never doubted — that there is more to patronage than writing colossal cheques and trying to look happy.
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