Star struck as a London icon serves up a treat

Marlene watching over me

Once upon a time – and it feels a mightily long time ago – I did an awful lot of theatre reviewing.

I didn’t get paid for it, but I got tickets, which were a form of gold dust anyway. And I got to pen reviews that were published in the UK’s smallest national daily newspaper, The Morning Star, where I eked out a meagre daytime living as, first, an advertising salesperson and later, as a sub-editor, sports editor and duty chief sub-editor.

It paid lousily, but it was a proper, old-fashioned way of learning a trade – and there were always those theatre tickets.

On a couple of occasions, I was taken out to dinner after a show by the exceptionally charming and generous Clive Hirschhorn, the long-time film and theatre critic of the Sunday Express, to whom I’d been introduced by the Star’s then film critic, Jeff Sawtell.

Clive (and partner) took pity on a hackette with renownedly piss-poor pay and no expenses, and carted me (and Jeff) off after a show I cannot recall to eat at Joe Allen’s, just off The Strand.

Since this was in the days before I started to really enjoy culinary matters, I remember nothing about the food. But I do remember sitting at one of the circular tables in the centre of the basement restaurant, with Alan Rickman right behind me, almost back to back, and having the devil’s own job not to melt into a pile of goo just hearing that voice.

And at some point, Su Pollard announced her arrival with a Hi-di-Hi-like holler as she entered.

It was love at first celebrity sighting.

I went back with a friend on a few occasions, sitting in a corner and nursing a salad starter and a glass of wine because that was what I could afford, but relishing the atmosphere. I remember huge amounts of walnuts and cheese in vast bowls of leaves; the late-evening piano and face-spotting as actors came in after their own evening's work, and the red brick walls covered in Broadway posters.

And thus Joe Allen’s – a legendary place on a far wider scale; open since 1977 and under new ownership this year – became a legend for me.

But that was a long time ago and, despite my best intentions, I had never revisited and The Other Half, for all my waxing lyrical over it on more than one occasion, had never been at all.

On Friday, however, we were booked into the Vaudeville to see The Ladykillers. And since we needed to eat, I was contemplating dinner in the vicinity.

After musing over the possibility of going to Orso, a rather nice Italian restaurant in another basement nearby, it struck me that this was the perfect chance to try Joe’s again.

There’s always a danger, when you nurse fond memories of something, that revisiting will ultimately spell disappointment. And even more so when you’ve burbled on about it for years to someone else and they’re now going to experience it first hand.

And anyway, what would the food be like?

Crab cakes and apple slaw

I started with a cocktail – a mint julep, since we were, after all, in what is an American diner meets a brasserie, and since I had, only a day earlier, been listening to the late, great Robert Preston singing that it was the eponymous Mame who gave his own “old mint julep a kick”.

I am not usually a whisky person, but this mix of bourbon, mint, sugar and water was very pleasant and refreshing.

From the South, it was a step up to New England for crab cakes and an apple slaw, with fries and a portion of buttered spinach on the side.

Oh my, oh my. The crab cakes were pure crab, flecked with red chilli that cut delightfully through the rich sweetness of the meat.

The slaw, which was on a bed of endive, was bitter and fresh and light – and far more than the garnish I’d rather expected (hence the order of spinach). There was also a little light rose marie sauce on the side, while the fries and spinach were equally top notch.

What do you follow that with?

Well, it was back down south for a slice of pecan and cranberry pie, with a quenelle of whipped cream – cue Family Guy jokes about Stewie’s pronunciation of ‘whipped’ – with a little cinnamon powder on top.

Pecan and cranberry pie with whipped cream

Seriously rich and naturally sweet, like the fruitiest fruit cake ever, with cream that was light as a feather, it was a superb end to a superb meal.

The Other Half opted for a steak, followed by a chocolate brownie and ice cream.

Mind, we stayed on this side of The Pond with wine – a glass of red for him and white for me – both from the Languedoc.

Joe’s is not a traditional diner with gingham tablecloths and red banquettes, but a very classy venue with a very classy take on some classic American cooking.

Oh, and the decor is wonderful for any theatre buff – we were watched over by Marlene’s lidded gaze.

There may not have been any face spotting to be done in our part of the room and at that time of evening, but the atmosphere is comfortable, the food excellent and the service good.

Briefly, then, to The Ladykillers.

The Ealing comedy has been rewritten for the stage by Graham Linehan of Father Ted and Black Books fame, and has received raves.

It is a light evening’s entertainment, but it isn’t the film.

The Ladykillers

The cast were great – particular mentions for Angela Thorne, Simon Day, Ralf Little and Chris McCalphy as Mrs Wilberforce, Major Courtney, Harry Robinson and One-Round.

It’s not that John Gordon Sinclair was bad as Professor Marcus, but he never really hits the creepy notes that are essential.

It has a brief moment of very welcome and sinister darkness in the second act, but certainly in the first, could out-ham David Walliams’s death scene in the Grandage Company Dream.

The robbery and chase, though, is very inventive and the set in general is excellent.

So, that was that. It made me order a copy of the original film, feeling that I need to remind myself what a glory of British cinema it is.

But if the theatre didn’t live up to hopes – Joe Allen’s most certainly did. We will be back.

Joe Allen’s

It's not the Daily Mail in disguise – honestly

Here's a question: can the only way to lure women to read a newspaper be to liberally sprinkle it with celebrity tittle tattle and bitchy dispatches about someone else's private life/body/clothes?

I ask for a reason, inspired (although it seems to do that word a rank injustice) by a piece in today's Daily Telegraph.

In it, a female journalist - and again, this is taxing the language somewhat - addressed the the vexed question of whether Ms Kate Winslet, star of the silver screen, was really doing a favour to her two children in marrying for a third time, being also pregnant by the new man in her life.

I'm really not sure what Kate has done to draw this attention - other than being a famous and successful film star - or perhaps it's simply because she is a Kate. After all, only a few short weeks ago, the same publication produced another piece, written by a different hackette, and filed under UK news.

The 'news' in that case, was that another Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, was rather letting the side down in the maternity wear stakes. She had apparently been buying off-the-peg pregnancy wear. The nerve of it.

There is something a tad ironic about the dear old Torygraph carrying an article that says that marriage might not be the best option for a particular individual who, whatever their 'success' rate in that field, certainly seems rather committed to it as an ideal.

Although, of course, marriage shouldn't be allowed for gay people.

But allow yourself a flight of fancy for a moment and muse whether it would have entertained the same thoughts of Henry VIII.

Which subject itself raises a quite interesting point.

Earlier this year, author Hilary Mantel was pretty much crucified by most of the press for a lecture that she gave (and the subsequent essay that was published) for the London Review of Books. In it, Mantel argued that the bodies of royal women become public property, because their core role becomes to produce an heir to the throne.

That she appealed, very calmly, for the Duchess to be left alone in her pregnancy came to nought, as what she'd said was twisted from being a very polite condemnation of much of the media coverage (and the public obsession with the issue) into a personal attack on Kate herself.

Yet within days, there was more coverage of the royal pregnancy. I recall one online article - if we can dignify it with such a term - that was simply an excuse to publish a number of pictures of the Duchess, taken at a function, from a variety of angles, to illustrate her "baby bump".

But while you reach for the sick bags, ponder this: one of the things that Mantell pointed out was that even in the reign of Henry VIII, while there may have been no newspapers, there was still no shortage of public speculation about his wives and their abilities (or otherwise) to produce a male heir.

So the issue is not new and cannot be laid entirely at the door of the newspapers.

What these latest examples illustrate, however, is that even quality newspapers are going down a particular route.

A little background here. I was first introduced to the Telegraph when I started doing sports coverage for the Morning Star. One of the senior hands informed me that it had the best sports coverage around and that I should read it.

He was right - and I did. And since these were the days when you had no option but to buy areal paper newspaper, I also read other content.

You didn't have to agree with the editorial line - but editorial and reporting were clearly and properly defined, and the quality of both was high. The Other Half also recalls that the Telegraph had exemplary coverage of intentional news, so this isn't just my viewing things through rosy specs.

Which makes it particularly sad to see a fine newspaper's descent down the road it is currently taking.

Only the other week it was revealed that the Telegraph, in conjunction with the BBC, of all media organisations, had done some serious, public-interest work on revealing lobbying issues among MPs.

But an increasing amount of the mainstream media seems to be relying on these occasional public-service journalism to justify an increasing amount of tripe - and their continued opposition to any form of independent regulation.

And there is the additional issue of such coverage so often being an encouragement by women, to other women, to judge and despise yet more women.

What does the Telegraph want and what does it think it will achieve?

The sort of articles that I have mentioned would be more obviously at home in the Daily Mail - and indeed, the Telegraph has gained a recent nickname of the Maily Telegraph in recognition of precisely this approach.

The Mail  has been remarkably successful in winning female readers - and winning them to right-wing politics. That's a fact. So does the Telegraph really believe that this is a way to boost circulation/hits among women?

It's probably fair to say that the majority of those who purchase gossip magazines are women, so presumably there's a growth market out there or at least considered to be. And the success of the Mail should never be underestimated as a model. for other publications

Of course women do not, per se, simply want to read tat, but the Telegraph is far from alone in this, and there is a real and increasing problem with even our so-called quality press feeling a need to dumb down.

And of course it's not merely a female thing. Judging by many, many posters on the Telegraph forums, most of whom appear to be male, the ultimate problem is an increasing, cross-gender inability to think beyond kneejerkery.

And that is bad for the public discourse as a whole and, therefore, for every single one of us who cares about that public discourse and about the political life of the country that it inevitably informs.

For that reason, it is irrelevant if one personally avoids such copy. Because the impact is obviously so much wider.

Unfortunately, I cannot see an end in sight to the dumbing down. Except to say: think about what you read - particularly online - and don't give financial succour to those who are probably quite happy for that dumbing-down, that increasing bread and circuses, to continue.

There is a question of wether in discussing such articles we actually fall into the trap of doing exactly what the accountants want - particularly given the relationship between online hits and advertising revenue - but it's just as dangerous, it seems to me, to pretend that ignoring this dross will make it go away.

We need to hold up the media to some sort of standards. Anything else simply lets the bastards get away with it.

Anyone fancy having a 'free press'?

Paul McMullan – a living, walking advert for regulation

Well, it didn’t take long. The weekend after the Leveson Inquiry reported, we had the fun and games of seeing Liberty director and Leveson advisor Shami Chakrabarti having to pen a rapid response to the confusion‚ in some of the press, over her stance on the report.

Now, setting aside the questions about who exactly elected Chakrabarti – and the organisation she heads – to the position that it appears to hold, one can’t help but wonder if the likes of the Mail on Sunday and the Independent (which lovely couple share a home these days) really couldn’t understand the nuances of her original response or were motivated by something else to actively misunderstand it.

But then again, lots of other people seem similarly incapable of understanding the issues surrounding Leveson.

For instance, there is lots of talk about threats to a ‘free press’. But what exactly does that mean?

Well, at it’s most simple, what people usually mean is something that can act in the general public interest by explaining things properly and uncovering corruption and lies etc, and holding politicians and so forth to account.

And it cannot be difficult for many to agree is a good idea.

But that is not, in general, what we have in the UK today.

Instead, what we have is a press that is, generally, owned by individuals for the sake of profit and their own agendas.

Now, for the sake of clarity: I have nothing whatsoever against profit – indeed, as a freelancer, I like it. Goodness – couldn’t I make a bit more myself?!

In terms of the press, though, there is the potential for conflict between the drive for profit and the general public interest ˆ not least where news isn’t considered sexy‚ enough to get readers and advertising.

Over the years, it’s meant, for instance, that some missing children are considered more worthy of space than others – usually because pictures of pretty, white girls make better front pages.

In other words, profit has been one of the drivers of the general dumbing-down of the UK press over the last 20-30 years, whereby we’ve arrived at a point where news‚ is dominated by who tweeted what, who slept with whom, and which celebrity fell out of what nightclub at 3am.

Now it may well be that that is what the great British public wants from its press – but let’s not pretend that, if that is the case, it’s what the concept of a ‘free press’ is really about.

Then there’s that agendas bit. Now again, let’s not be naïve.

All newspaper proprietors will have their own political views, and will want to disseminate them. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But in the last decades, we’ve seen a serious crumbling of the once sacred wall that divided reporting and editorialisation as the British press has slumped toward a sort of Fox News approach, the kind of thing that Rupert Murdoch espouses as his answer to supposed elitism.

Even a once fine newspaper such as the Telegraph does it these days. In the past, you’d buy it for its quality of news coverage, even if you didn’t always agree with the editorial line, but the two were clearly defined.

And if conflating reporting and editorial isn’t bad enough, papers further dumb down matters by employing the likes of Jeremy Clarkson or Julie Bindel as columnists.

Okay – Clarkson can at least be funny, but he’s no more a philosopher, say, than Richard Littlejohn. Oh.

And Bindel’s continued contributions to the Guardian simply serve to allow hand-wringing liberals a bit of ‘acceptable’ bigotry.

Look across the Channel and it’s a different world. When the French were having their burqa debate, for instance, the public discussion was not drawn along strictly tribal political lines.

For instance, one of the commentators was a left-wing female philosopher who was in favour of a ban, but articulated her reasons in a nuanced way. Philosophically, in other words.

Similarly, if there is a strike in France, papers might not agree with that action, but there will be a pattern of all press – from across the political spectrum – actually analysing the reasons for industrial action, and discussing it in a way that at least examines the issues.

And French newspapers are refreshingly free of those 3am nightclub stories.

They are not, however, run by the state or as organs of the state – they are private companies. Which rather suggests that you don’t need to print a diet of salacious gossip or infantilised opinion in order to make money.

But fair enough: if you’re going to turn news into knee-jerkery and titilating entertainment because it sells, that’s your decision. Just don’t try to pretend that it’s about ‘free press’. It’s not.

Indeed, it was the late Sir Robin Day who once noted: “Only two newspapers tell the truth. The Financial Times, which tells the truth for the business community, and the Morning Star, which tells the truth for the workers”.

There is, of course, plenty of other hypocrisy in all this. Imagine if you will, editor Paul Dacre at the Mail suggesting that it would be a good idea for trade unions to regulate themselves. No?

But, as the late Frank Carson would have said: “There’s more”.

Many of those now shrilling the loudest about the idea of any form of meaningful (independent) regulation are, in effect, defending the intrusion into people’s private lives on the grounds of profit.

Because profit was the only motive for the stories about Max Mosely, for instance. The News of the World tried to confect a public interest argument – and failed.

The idea that, when someone is in the public eye, they are automatically demanding to be followed and photographed everywhere etc is a nonsense.

Some might – some do – but it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t be a better world by ignoring such attention-seekers and not pandering to their demand for attention, let alone then deciding that anyone else remotely in the public eye (well, in the entertainment world, at any rate) is fair game.

And let’s note what should be obvious: making a film or writing a book is not one and the same as demanding to be followed and reported everywhere, any more than writing a column or editing a paper is also a demand for an end to one’s privacy.

So when some in the media wail about ‘a free press’, what they’re actually meaning is a press that is free to invade people’s privacy for no reason other that profit by publishing salacious stories.

What is odd about this is that it seems unlikely that the same people would also ever applaud or have applauded countries where the state invaded people’s privacy to the extent of persecuting them for what they wrote or said or read, whether for reasons of religious or political ideology.

Few would support such totalitarianism, but if not, why fall for a line that a ‘free press’ needs to invade people’s privacy for salacious entertainment that does not have the support of a genuine public interest argument?

That is one of the things highlighted by Leveson, together with other similarly irresponsible behaviour, in the name of sensation that, as Leveson himself said, has caused “havoc” in people’s lives.

One of the most tragic cases raised again at Leveson was that of murdered Glasgow schoolgirl Diane Watson, about whom a series of lies were published in two Scottish newspapers, plus Marie Claire magazine. Her brother later killed himself and was found clutching the articles about his sister.

The murder happened in 1991. One of the two papers, the Herald, only managed an apology in 2011, after Diane’s parents had appeared at the Leveson Inquiry. It was itself under different ownership by then.

The journalist who concocted stories about their daughter, claiming she was a bully and had, in effect, contributed to her own murder, claimed to have been shocked to have been personally mentioned at Leveson.

Perhaps if he had not taken a decision to invent stories to support his own agenda, that surprise wouldn’t have occurred.

There was the case of Mosely’s son, who suffered from depression and died of a drug overdose within a year of the News of the World story, which might or might not have pushed him over the edge.

Mosely himself has described how, when going to his son’s flat to deal with his remaining belongings, the place was subject of a press scrum. One wonders what public interest was served by that?

And then there’s the story of how News of the World hack Paul McMullan drove the mentally ill and drug-addicted daughter of the late Denholm Elliot to suicide by luring her into prostituting herself so he could take nude photographs of her for the paper and, in his own words, impress his new boss, Piers Morgan.

This is the same McMullan who has also claimed that the only people who want privacy are paedophiles – which quite splendid piece of utter fuckwittedness has the ring of Orwell’s 1984 about it.

And all this is without mentioning the links between elements of the press and the police in the case of the murder of Daniel Morgan.

It is without mentioning the complicity of swathes of the British press in the 20-plus year cover up of what happened at Hillsborough.

And so on.

None of these were accidents. They illustrate a culture that exists – a culture that is being defended by an assortment of individuals and groups.

It takes some contortions to pretend that any of this is remotely justifiable – or that the state of the British press is, in general, something to be proud of and something to defend.

Independent regulation works fine in places such as Finland and Denmark – the former is consistently number 1 in the International Press Freedom Index, even with (gasp) statutory underpinnings.

In the UK, independent regulation doesn’t seem to upset anybody when applied to, say, advertising.

It seems that the real problems people have with the thought of independent regulation are nothing to do with any concept of a ‘free press’, and everything to do with either reducing the ability to profit from the private lives of others – and a sort of fundamentalist small statism that has to pretend that none of the above problems and contradictions exist or need dealing with, in order to continue with it’s view that even an independent regulator would be state intervention and the end of life as we know it.

A free press? Yes – that would be most welcome.