Farewell Nick Kenyon
There was a bit of a do at the BBC for departing Proms director Nicholas Kenyon, as though he’d changed the way the world was turning. Perhaps he has. Like all good administrators, he’s kept the people who do the real work around him happy, as he said himself, and has been as impressive at the BBC as he was as a critic on the Financial Times, New Yorker and Observer.
Nick always wanted to be doing something as well as writing abut it: he’s had an impact, climbed that greasy pole, next stop Barbican and the knighthood. Rather endearingly, he still lives with his family in an unremarkable Gospel Oak terraced house with a creaky front gate and chaotic curtains.
When I moaned about something or other years ago, David Hare said, well, if you feel that strongly, DO something.
Unlike Nick, I didn’t. I quite like being a critic. It’s easy. Well, fairly easy. Nick has put his money where his mouth was and become one of the most important impresarios of our day. The Barbican will be safe in his hands, as long as he retains the theatrical expertise of Graham Sheffield, or replaces it with someone else’s — like mine, perhaps!
Only kidding. The only insider theatre job I ever applied for was the directorship of the Edinburgh Festival about thirty years ago. And then only because the outgoing directorship asked me to. I wasn’t even given a reply, let alone an interview.
Nick’s party attracted such luminaries as Michael Frayn, Claire Tomalin, Norman Rosenthal, David Attenborough, Simon Jenkins, Robert Hewison, John Tideyman, Gillian Reynolds and Norman Lebrecht, and hard core broadcasters Jim Naughtie, Sue McGregor, Donald McLeod (who couldn’t recall recording this week’s wonderful Radio 3 composer of the week Charles Ives; he wipes the last job the minute he goes on to the next one) and Tommy Pearson.
Satirists Ian Hislop and John Bird were hanging around, too. Serious music, and its audience, will survive, longer even than Gloria Gaynor. Thanks greatly to the BBC and just a little thanks to Nick Kenyon. Three cheers for high art!