The last time I wrote for The Spectator’s diary slot, over the summer, theatres were tentatively beginning to turn their lights on again, following the historically long closures at the height of the pandemic. On Monday night the West End went dark once more, but thankfully only briefly. Theatres along Shaftesbury Avenue and beyond dimmed their lights at 7 p.m. to mark the legacy of Stephen Sondheim, who died last week. I came to Sondheim’s work quite late myself, and I’m sure a new audience will be found following the affection generated at his passing. Sondheim’s impact is felt as much on the theatre scene here as it is in America, but he didn’t write about British politics, of course — or did he? This song from A Little Night Music is in reference to the theatrical tactic, deployed when a show isn’t going well, of bringing on a clownish figure to offer some distracting jokes: ‘Where are the clowns?/ Send in the clowns./ Don’t bother, they’re here.’
I’m in the final days of rehearsals for my own new play, which opens at London’s Young Vic theatre this week. Best of Enemies covers the 1968 US television debates between the father of modern American conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr, and the liberal playwright Gore Vidal. These exchanges — the first real example of the modern cultural phenomenon of pitting opposing pundits against one another to create ‘debate’ — only came about because ABC, the lowest-rated and poorest of the television networks, needed a cheap innovation to their coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions that year. What occurred, by accident or design, was a ratings winner that pretty much transformed political coverage for ever.
Buckley and Vidal loathed one another and saw the other’s ideology as immoral and reckless.
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