Michael Henderson

Acting up | 9 April 2011

Sam West embodies luvvie stupidity about arts funding

‘We’re asked to console with each tremulous soul who steps out to be loudly applauded. Stars on opening nights weep when they see their names in lights. Though people who act, as a matter of fact, are financially amply rewarded, it seems while pursuing their calling their suffering is simply appalling.’

The mummers couldn’t deceive Noel Coward. The Master knew all their ways, for he lived among them, as dramatist, actor, director and — as we have seen — songwriter. What a shame he’s not still with us, for the furore surrounding the ‘savage cuts’ announced last week by the Arts Council of England might have prompted him to add a few more humorous verses about the vanity of certain thesps.

Not all; by no means. Most actors learn their lines, put on the greasepaint, and toddle off to their digs to see, in the time-honoured phrase, if the landlady’s daughter obliges. But some want us to know how much they suffer for their art, and they want us to suffer, too. Had he been around last week Coward would almost certainly have found much to chortle at in the absurd preening of Sam West, for whom the diminished Arts Council subsidy to theatre was not the result of Gordon Brown’s financial incontinence. Heavens no, it was all ‘ideologically motivated’.

He told the Guardian: ‘The Conservatives are frightened of anything that educates and enlightens people — such as theatre. They want to preserve the social distinctions that exist between the rich and poor.’ These are not, you may note, the words of a frothing teenager. They belong to a man of 44 who attended Alleyn’s School in Dulwich and Oxford University where, no doubt, he acquired that grand manner.

West is a perfectly good actor and, having met him a couple of times, I should add that he is a decent man.

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