Poofs’ Football

When I was two, in 1956, Anthony Eden was Prime Minister, Eisenhower was President and Clement Crisp wrote his first review for the Financial Times. In those days the FT, still known as the pink ‘un – at least by my grandfather – was cautiously expanding its coverage to include the Arts and even ballet.

Albert Steptoe (of Steptoe and Son) referred to this high art-form as “poofs’ football”. Now football is dubbed the beautiful game in recognition of the slight similarity. If you have been to the ballet in London you will have seen the impeccably dressed Clement Crisp. On Saturday, FT Weekend paid tribute to their veteran contributor whose trenchant observations have earned him the respect of choreographers and dancers and an OBE for services to ballet. He is unusual as a critic; he doesn’t pull his punches – “kiss ’em or kill ’em” is his motto.

But I digress. Sometimes I may have suggested that an opera production has been less than satisfactory, and it jolly well has. The Christmas La Bohème in Paris set in a space ship rankles; and there was an opera set in an empty swimming pool; and that stinker in Bologna, Schubert’s Die Freunde von Salamanca. Though Schubert is known to be a prolific composer I had no idea that he composed several operas.

Professional critics annoy me because they sneer at perfectly good productions. Last year Madama Butterfly at Glyndebourne got some poor reviews. I didn’t agree. I think that working in the the evenings, missing the pleasures of hearth and home, they become dyspeptic. They are supposed to be dispassionate critics. When I’m sitting in a freezing cold polling station in the middle of the night I sympathise with the staff – working longer hours than me – and restrict my official report to the facts, although I would have liked to mention in dispatches a Chairwoman shouting to me across a hall, “it’s 26 degrees in London!” I heard the laughs before the translation.