Are the cultural Marxists in retreat, or lying low?

In his Memoirs, Kingsley Amis includes a story about meeting Roald Dahl at a party in the 1970s. Dahl advises him to write a children’s book — ‘That’s where the money is’ — and brushes aside his objection that he doesn’t think it would be any good. ‘Never mind, the little bastards’d swallow it,’ he says. Then, a few minutes later, Dahl raises himself to his full height and, with the air of a man asserting his integrity in the face of an outrageous slur, says: ‘If you do decide to have a crack, let me give you one word of warning. Unless you put everything you’ve got into it, unless you write it from the heart, the kids’ll have no use for it. They’ll see you’re having them on… Just you bear that in mind as a word of friendly advice.’

I was reminded of this anecdote last Saturday while watching The Twits, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel at the Royal Court. As a production, it was a peculiar combination of cynicism and sincerity — condescendingly didactic and painfully earnest at the same time.

Like every play I’ve ever seen at the Royal Court, The Twits is a thinly disguised solicitation to vote Labour. That’s quite a feat since the book is a ferociously snobbish indictment of England’s petit bourgeoisie. The malignancy of the two central characters, Mr and Mrs Twit, is inseparable from their lowly class origins. They are curtain-twitchers who live in a suburban semi and Dahl, who lived in a large country house in Great Missenden, clearly thought that all such people are venal and mean-spirited.

In the stage adaptation, Mr and Mrs Twit behave just as unpleasantly, but Dahl’s snobbery has been inverted and they have become members of the nobility.