Page 94 - RPS Awards 2023 Coverage Book

that read today like a BDSM text, much grimmer than anything you would expect to find in a
modern thriller. Should they be cut?

The comparison with Dahl is a good one: the controversy around his children’s stories was as
much to do with cruelty as with cultural “updating”. In each case, we should keep a cynical eye
on the publishing trade. Releasing bowdlerised books into a predictable storm of ridicule and
then announcing that the “classic texts” will be available as well is business-like.

Taking out words to make texts more accessible to today’s readers is commercial and
reasonable. But the danger of censoring texts, thrillers or Shakespeare, is that in losing what
scares or offends us, we lose old truths too – about our innate savagery, for instance, which
never quite goes away. Liberalism advances by rejecting “old truths” as the signifiers of
oppression, and yet a literature without shadows is useless.

What Dahl knew is that children are (or can be) beastly, vengeful and cruel. Childhood
innocence? I’m reminded of the late great Adrian Mitchell’s poem about the playground, or as
he called it “the killing ground”: “Well you get it for being Jewish/And you get it for being
black/You get it for being chicken/And you get it for fighting back/You get it for being big and
fat/ Get it for being small/Oh those who get it get it and get it/For any damn thing at all.”

[See also: The dark heart of Roald Dahl]

Box-ticking and Bach
John Gilhooly, who runs London’s Wigmore Hall, has made a passionate plea for an expansion
of musical education in a speech for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. But he also
betrayed a worry about government-imposed reshaping of musical programming. “Too often
policymakers today regard artists as ‘creatives’ who can be mobilised to fulfil the criteria
imposed upon them. Artistic excellence is not something that we should be ashamed to
champion. We should not have to think twice about saying that Bach, for instance, was a
colossus… but in the current funding climate, statements like that seem to be less than
welcome, or worse still, even irrelevant.”

It’s a royal sellout
There is an interesting kerfuffle developing over which rock and pop artists are going to
perform for King Charles’s Coronation: Elton John, Adele, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles are all
out; Olly Murs and Tom Tallis are in. It’s a strange deal, these royal events, for popular
performers. On the one hand you get a huge audience, a big stage, and the gratitude of the
monarchy; on the other, since you appear to be part of the institution buying itself credibility,
you seem a bit naff. It was subtly different during the Queen’s reign – who wants to say no to
mother? Being King in the 2020s may mean endless cultural renegotiation.

Live streaming

As the huge American streaming services grapple for eyeballs and survival, Netflix has crossed
another barrier. It’s going live. So far, the ability of traditional broadcasters to cover live events,
from music and sport to politics, has been a kind of final defensive wall, which the slower-
moving, high-budget streamers can’t breach. So Chris Rock: Selective Outrage on Netflix earlier
this month, a live stand-up by the engaging American comedian, may make media history. Or