Communists & Kings

It behooves me, as a septuagenarian debutant among real pros, to be respectful of my neighboring columnist, the great Taki. But occasionally even he gets things wrong. Taki recently claimed that Byron had given his life for Greek liberty. Other historians believe that Byron really went to Greece to escape from a demanding mistress. Then there's Toby Young, who recently wrote about his father's Bentley motorcar. Toby thought it extraordinary that his father, who professed to being a Socialist, should have owned such a posh car. Not at all. That card-carrying Communist, the late Yves Montand, explained his choice of a Bentley because "at least it wasn't an American car."

Now, like Byron, I have often escaped to France to get away from an English girlfriend, but I steadfastly refuse to join the French in their anti-Americanism. The French simply cannot forgive the Yanks for saving their bacon in two World Wars, and indeed for preventing Stalin from installing Thorez or Sartre in the Elysee Palace. Of course, in a federal European Union we can look forward to the rotating presidency ultimately being occupied by someone even worse. For that reason I shall always be grateful for the fact that my grandchildren have their American passports.

The Royal Shakespeare Company have been hitting dizzy heights. First they coproduced the 10-hour Trojan epic Tantalus, then they went on with their whole slate of Shakespeare's plays of English history. In order to blabber intelligently about the latter I reread Shakespeare's Kings by my old friend, John Julius Norwich. We know that "history is written by the victors," but it is remarkable how close the Bard was even to current historical scholarship.

Now the RSC have just completed a series of modern plays on contemporary England, This Other Eden, to show us John of Gaunt's "Blessed Plot" today. Surprisingly I found it rather encouraging. Biyi Bandele's Brixton Stories features two characters in a black London community. A man and woman. What could be more old-fashioned? Like David Oyelowo in the RSC's production of Henry VI, these young actors show such a command and love of the music and poetry of the English language that they calmed my fears of racist violence in a multicultural society. Bravo.

Also part of this series was David Farr's Thoughts of Joan of Arc on the English as She Burns on the Stake, a timely reminder of the slaughter that followed earlier attempts in history to join England to the Continent of Europe. The play is listed as a monologue, and would have been one, had Joan's heartbreaking cry for Jesus at the moment of her death not been echoed by the dulcet tones of a mobile telephone. Truly a deus ex machina symbol of this "other Eden."

Another inordinately long title for a playlet was Epitaph for the Official Secrets Act, or Stella's Dirty Little Secret. It would be charitable not to disclose the names of the authors of this tiresome harangue.

Coinciding with the end of the run of John Barton's Tantalus I went to hear the poet Christopher Logue read extracts from his version of Homer's Iliad. It would be invidious to compare a huge theatrical spectacle with the quiet recital of a poem, but I was deeply moved. Logue's slim volumes, Kings and War Music, now nest in my jacket pocket. The ardors of Homer's heroes help me escape from the odors of my neighbors on the London subway trains. More scholars and poets have tried their hand at translating and in giving their version of Homer than of any other work of fiction. Homer was the beginning of literature.

Logue's version is the best since Chapman's, and the most fun since Pope's. Yet Logue belongs to the first generation of erudite poets who were not educated in classical Greek. If a story is great enough it will never die. May this give us hope that in the future the story and inspiration of Christ may yet survive amongst nonbelievers?

The National Theatre's effort to compete with the RSC's epic productions consisted of revivals of Oklahoma and of My Fair Lady. I know that when such productions later transfer to the commercial West End theaters they earn useful royalties for the National Theatre. But is it really the role of a subsidized institutional theater to produce Broadway musicals? Or is it only further proof that English governments just don't like the arts and starve them financially? No French government, of whatever political complexion, has ever poor-boyed the arts. In a European Union the only consolation for the loss of political liberty and fiscal flexibility would be to have a permanent French Minister for the Arts, with a deputy Gauleiter for Music from Germany.

The National Theatre did, however, redeem their renown with a brace of Albees: Finding the Sun, written in 1982, and Marriage Play, written in 1986. It is strange how ignored Edward Albee was in the years between Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and Three Tall Women. His incisive version of some aspects of American family life makes the Oresteia seem like a timid soap opera or sitcom. Come to think of it, Agamemnon was a bit like Archie Bunker.