The real reason I had to join The Spectator

Over the past four decades I have received many reviews in The Spectator, all of them mixed (in the technical theatrical sense of ‘extremely bad’). For example, in 1976 The Spectator wrote about Fawlty Towers:

I’ve been bellyaching, ever since I started writing this column, about the low standard of the programmes. I have been told by friends and acquaintances, ‘Ah! But have you seen Fawlty Towers? You’ll enjoy that!’… Well, last Sunday I finally watched the bally thing and I am gratified to report that I didn’t laugh once. What is more I found Fawlty Towers, like its predecessor Monty Python, rather nasty… When Cleese is involved I detect traces of sadism. The continuing battle between Mr and Mrs Fawlty is obsessive and the sound of a man shouting at the top of his voice for half an hour is bound to become boring. There is the same tendency as in Monty Python to take a ‘joke’ and hammer it remorselessly into the ground.