The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 36

36 ARTS THE GUARDIAN Friday December 1 1989 Today is World Aids Day. Far from confronting the epidemic, the British are retreating into deceit. Artists should lead the way to realism and honesty, argues Duncan Fallowed Whem sex becomes sin ffN New York City esti-1 1 mates of the number car- 1 1 rying the Aids virus vary death of an artist as the extinc- -Hon of a production line oh, the masterpieces we shall never have. But a work of art comes out of all the circumstances of an arlist's life. Aids nnj Chatwin the opportunity to write an extraordinary book his character, which gave us the books we have, meant that he couldn't take that opportunity.

The cause of Aids would have been immensely advanced had PhnHlrin rnmo ftvruiarti htlf iftia riiHn'f urich tn Hn cn that's hie right Writers nsimllv ivftiw in join circuses however worthy. On the other hand his fear of what was inside him gave his books an enamelled, sterile surface. And if his shame did noth- inc fnr his art. it riirt pvpn Iprr reflexive animals merely, but imaginative self-conscious beings bring about sexual arousal (entirely uninhibited lovemaking is entropic; monogamy often founders on this). Taboos create fantasy, constraint may be stimulating, but art and caution are not healthy bedfellows.

Aids encourages censorious attitudes and therefore censorship, which is not stimulation but constipation. Sex shows, sex shops, pornography have been largely swept away from our cities where they hardly existed anyway. Safe-sex pornorgraphy has reached Europe from the US. This is quite as instructive as any government campaign but the British are not allowed pornography, although their prurience makes them imagine they are flooded by it. Nudity is on the increase in life.

The fashion for torn jeans is the body in bondage crying for release the body is revealed by an act of violence. The whole modern "look" for young people is the gaylesbian stereotype with sado-masochistic overtones. Loss of physical embarrassment is also associated with the growth of sport and leisure activities. But representations of nudity are once more disappearing from the ordinary as well as from the pornographic world. Rees-Mogg is appointed to cleanse a television service which, as far as sex is concerned, was already so clean you could hear it bleat.

The body may be used in sport but not contemplated in pleasure; used to advertise but not to gratify. The bodv the temple 1 1 trom nau a million up-aaw wards. The human infrastructure of the arts has been devastated by the loss of actors, directors, dancers, painters, journalists and so on. Trying to mount a play or ballet in New York is close to impossible so many of the necessary class have gone. This is not the case in Great Britain where the impact of Aids on the arts is more general and insidious.

We have yet to be shaken into candour although the process is beginning? References to anal sex have reached the Jimmy Young show, so certain taboos have collapsed. But other taboos spring up. The initial effect of Aids is a rapid proliferation of NO. These days James Bond is allowed only one woman per film but is yet to be revealed as a condom-user. The condom is a problem, as well as the answer to a problem.

In an infectious, people-jammed world, the Catholic Church forbids its use. The British Government refuses to permit condom distribution in prisons because this would be an admission of what they and everyone else knows, that homosexuality is conventional in prisons. Hypocrisy kills. The Government Aids programme is not so much anti-Aids as anti-sex, a cause the British are always ready to support. Fay Weldon has said that readme about sex in yester for his death which instead of being tragic becomes the one thing he didn't want it to be ignoble.

Shame over what one is, sustained to the point of Hands-on: Michael Pennington as Bill, the impatient entrepreneur photograph: oouqias jeffery THEATRE: Michael Billington on the new Poliakoff at the Pit Cutting corners The cause of Aids would have been immensely advanced had Bruce Chatwin come forward but if he didn't wish to do so, that's his right aeam, produces a curious depression in others. This is because shame is very contagious. The dark secret was maintained after his death not only by a grieving family but also by many liberal colleagues. It was a campaign not of silence, which is permissible, but of deception which is not. Public obsequies conducted by those who knew otherwise, as- cribing Chatwin's death simply to a bone marrow disease, hit a new Inw in mlr ahilitv in tarlrlo against Aids has inevitably revived anti-homsexuality.

In an aberration from the realm of common values which governments are supposed to foster, Clause 29 singles out homosexuals as the one group in Britain whose attachments are not to be permitted the description "family" (a word which essentially means Petty and ridiculous in itself, this legislation nonetheless gave official approval to homophobia in the country at large. Ostracisation in the Aids era gives an embattled intensity to homosexual experience and so to art. Art and literature have on the subject. When liberal intel- lectuals are frightened to mention Aids, what hope for Joe Bloggs? Doctors often collude with families to misrepresent the cause of death, so the medi-'. cal picture is falsified as well.

1 Yes, Aids has given us a new of love, becomes the nursery of pestilence, tempting and lethal. The very sensation of sexual suujci uj wi lie auuuL uui arc arousal is life-threatening, sex in art will recover its old post-Fanny Hill, pre-Lady Chatter-ley malevolence. Only more so. Television, incidentally, has behaved very responsibly over Aids, whereas the Dublic has as director, should have per-usaded Mr Poliakoff to tighten a potentially fine play. But the staging itself is admirably fluent and underscores Mr Poliakoffs gift for writing scenes that exist at a slight tangent to reality.

Briefly back from his Shakespearean peregrinations, Michael Pennington also plays Bill with just the right mixture of enthusiasm for ideas and impatience with people. With his clenched hair and whippetlike body, he seems to be in a permanent hurry like a linen-suited White Rabbit: it is a performance that suggests Mr Pennington is moving fruitfully from classical heroes towards eccentric character-studies. Lesley Sharp and Simon Russell Beale as his two children not only look incredibly like sister and brother but also capture extremely well the mutinous candour of the one and the nervous awkwardness of the other. Robert Demeger also puts in a notable appearance as a fish-eyed, sardonic Judge. Everything the acting can do is done; but I still feel that Mr Poliakoff, rather like his hero, has been carried away by the unrestrained exuberance of his own inventiveness.

In repertory at The FIVE years ago, in Breaking The Silence, Stephen Poliakoff wrote a very good play about a grandiose dreamer who sacrifices his family to his own unrealised inventions. Now, in Playing With Trains, he has written a very similar piece about a visionary engineer who can persuade neither government nor industry to back his pioneering projects. It Las many vibrant scenes but cries out for a dramaturg prepared to back away at passages of indulgent writing. Mr PoliakofFs central thesis comes across loud and clear: that the British genius for invention is not backed by a comparable talent for manufacturing exploitation. We are reminded that we allowed the jet engine, penicillin, computers and even Lego to be taken up by others.

And Mr Poliakoffs hero, Bill, is an electrical engineer and self-publicising tycoon who makes a fortune out of the automatic gramophone-turntable, but who ends up ruined both by an ill-advised libel action and the reluctance of British industry to back his ideas. What is good about the play (spanning the period from 1967 to the present) is its ambivalent attitude to its hero. Bill is obviously a fizz ing ideas-man, selflessly prepared to back other people's inventions: when a protege comes up with a futuristic road-rail vehicle he batters away at government research departments to get it off the ground. But he is also a complete wash-out as a father who treats his two children as if they were failed inventions: there is a very good, quintessentially Poliakofflan scene when Bill uses his daughter's wedding-reception to exhibit prototype beat-pumps and kidney-machines. Like Balzac in The Quest For The Absolute, Mr Poliakoff shows ho inventive obsession can blind a man to personal relationships.

But although the play is written with passion and energy.it lacks the sinewy muscularity you find in Mr Poliakoffs best work for the screen. To make the point that Bill's crusading fervour is accompanied by a show-off vanity, we get not one but two scenes of him spouting off on the plaintiff's stand during the Ubel-case-And the final father-daughter confrontation, which is ahout the residual affection under the surface hostility, circles endlessly around like a plane in the stack' waiting for a chance to land. Plays are not written but re-written; and Ron Daniels, fence, are trying to brazen the whole thing out, notwithstanding the Pasteur Institute in their midst. But the cultural environment in which continental artists work is less Philistine, more supportive and adult than ours. Cyril Connolly's remarks, written in 1938, still carry weight It is no exaggeration to say that every English writer since Byron and Shelley has been hamstrung by respectability and been prevented by snobbery and moral cowardice from attaining his full dimensions is the difference between being a good fellow and growing up." HYPOCRISY, lies, distortion, secrecy, deceit, threats, self-disgust, cooking the facts, and shame all these may make life more interesting but they are no good when trying to cope with Aids and all are exemplified in the case of the writer Bruce Chatwin, the most important Aids casualty in the arts to date.

Chatwin was unable to admit to having the. Aids, virus, presumably because it would have been tantamount to a con fession of the homosexuality to which he was socially maladjusted. At a different level, it would also make this otherwise very successful man appear to be a loser in life. People often view the early is not propaganda. It arises from a deeper pit.

Aids is our old friend Death in his latest costume. It will give a quiver tainted fascination to the end of our millennium, as syphilis and tuberculosis do to their times. Meanwhile the artists themselves are being far from impractical. Gilbert George's recent ex- hibition raised 565,500 for Cru-said. the largest single private donation yet.

And as we mo ve into a more open, less callous begun to deal openly with sexual matters in the 20th century. It would be unfortunate if the subject were to be driven back into darkness by the challenge of Aids when precisely the opposite needs to happen. The British are especially bashful about utterances on sex and love, the result of their fear of the body and fear of emotion. day's novels is like watching people smoke in old films. Love and romance are supposedly making a big comeback.

So at last Fay can write romances on a clear conscience. But love and romance have never been away, any more than sex and smoking have. The coming of Aids vividly reveals how helplessly romantic, superstitious, ignorant and bigoted our sexual thinking still is. Maybe Aids will force us to be more realistic and more fanciful. Certainly the forms of love and sex are altering.

When did thev not? The arts eat up these alterations, as they do everything else, without a qualm. Only the artists left behind turn nostalgic, sometimes aggressively so. The arts are more discreet than they were 10, 20 years back. The Rio Carnival too is -quieter now. This is due to Aids, and due also to the air of congestion we're all having to cope with.

Constraints in art can stimulate creativity, just as taboos are one of the ways in which humans no longer been subjected to raucous and misleading intimidation by the press, quality as well as tabloid. One concludes that television is taken more seriously than print and is therefore more aware of its responsibilities, whereas the press feels that it doesn't matter so much if, in the course of indulging its prin No Buronean country can decade, perhaps some good may ciples, it gets things a bit wrong. On the whole Aids is sexually transmitted; lit the magnesium match the complexity of our sex-control although the Aids crisis has of course posed difficulties everywhere: In Italy the. Catholic Church continues to oppose programmes of public enlightenment. tiasrt, tne me seed may De come irom uus macabre amic- tion.

Perhaps we may all come a little more honest about -what we do, why and with r-whom. And is that so very im- Well, it can make us generally less abject, less unkind creatures, more capable of withstanding fear and using a candid intelligence to face our bizarre destiny. in Germany tne national ou- swopped for the death seed. It is seen therefore not as a disease to be confronted rationally and sympathetically but as a sin, as a crime against humanity. During this primary phase the fight rity neurosis has resurfaced.

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ANDREW LLC YD WEBBER'S AWARD-W INNINO MUSICAL NIGEL JANE HAWTHORNE LAPOTAIRE 'Kuttrty' Tms. 'Virtuoso' Tms SHADOWLANDS HAMLET DRURY LANE THEATRE ROYAL. Box Office A CC (rto bkg. lee). 836 8108 CC24-hr.

7 Directed by Toby Robertson. LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES SEATS AVAIL. THIS WEEK plrectrd by Yuri Lvublmov 'i it JiqsT mphati. "Packed with emotional bomb THE PHANTOM OF THE "Unbearabiy Moving" Std. "A tnvlnlhr Idomeneo.

APOLLO. 01-437 2663 cc 01-379 4444)741 9999 (with bko fee) 01-240 7200. Grps. 01930 MISS SAIGON BEST MUSICAL un Atrt Drama Atnarda IMA 1317 CC 01-379 4444240 7200741 9999 (bkg tee) Evqs.B.O. Mali.

Wed. A Sal. 3.0, DOMINION Ol- RIVERSIDE STUDIOS. TiR OPERA MARTIN SMITH JILL ROBERT WASHINGTON MEAD MORE Iren Bartok plays Christine at certain perls. Directed by HAROLD PRINCE.

Eva 7.45. Mat Wed. ft Sal. 3 0DVIC. 928 7616.

THE LIAR ByCornellle Director; Jonathan Millar WB.n NATIONAL OPERA. Nrxl week. Dec. 5, 9 Dor Frelschuta; Dec. 6.

8 Luela dl Lammar-moor; Drr. 7 The Bartsrsd Brtde. 7.30 pm. sen. Clt.

3354. CC 563 0331. Sharad EBparlanea Theatre' "SPELLBINDING. Gdn. HEARTBREAK HOUSE BY Evas.

7.45. Mats. Wed Sat. at 3 pm. Chrck dally lor returns.

A few balcony seals usually available. Good seats avail, for some Wed. Mali. Latecomers not PETER O'TOOLE 'JEFFREY BERNARD IS UNWELL "IT'S BUDDY BRILLIANT" "SHEER UNADULTERA. TED FUN I LOVE THIS Thf Man, Thr Muhtc.

TheLegmd ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, PICCADILLY. Wl RECORDED INFO 01-439 49967. THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY 1E3IM. Open dally 1 0-6 inc. Sun (reduced rate Sun.

until 1.45 pm). LONDON ORIOINAL PRINT FAIR, Royal Academy. Piccadilly. Wl. 1-4 Dec.

Daily 11-6 pm. Adm. 4 Incl. cat. Tel.

01 287 3565. 1 triccis avanaDie went nicmis 7.30. Ends Sat. 7.0 pi by Keith Water hou si nirrrlrribvNrtmhrrHn SADLER'S WELLS. 278 8916.

ROYAL COURT. 730 I 745. rc PALACE THEATRE. 434 0909. 24.hr.

379 4444 (bko leel. Z40 7200 (bkq. fpe). Grr SHOWS" NcwswVck. LES MISERABLES THI MUSICL SENSATION F.VDH 7.

AO. MrftM. Thllrti JU h.il AN OUTRIGHT WINNER Eve Std. "PETER O'TOOLE IS BUDDY Buddy Holly COMEDY OF THE YEAR r-irsr tan cc T-oay nail 7200. Ends Tomor.

LONDON CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATRE. 6 London Premieres Evgs. 7.30. 'WONDERFUL STUFF' APPLE8, thc musical by Ian Dury. Muslcby Micky Gallagher Kvoi.

8pm, Sal. Mt. 4 pm. THEATRE UPSTAIRS. 730 2554.

SLEEPING NIGHTIE, KVletariaHantla.EvQS.7.30. t. Mat. 3.30. APOLLO VICTORIA.

H2B "I LOVIQ IT" Fin. 2.30. Latecomers not admitted OPEN Mon-Thurs 8.0. Frl. A Sal.

5. SO A 8.30. ALL SEATS Vi Uiivirr Awarcts iintt PAULA WILCOX WILLY RUSSELL'S SHIRLEY VALENTINE Evas 8. Mat. Thur.

3. Sat. 5. "The audience roars Its approval. Shirley's spell Is unbreakable" D.

Mall. "Thafunnlastandtha most haartwarmlng P'y for 8663. CC 630 6262. Groups 828 6188. CC.

Opm.all hours 3794444. IstCall 2Eu7200. K. Prowie. 741 9999.

Grps. 930 6123. Evoi. 7.45, Mats. Toe.

A 'ALLO 'ALLO SEVEN WEEKS ONLYI "FIGHT TO OIT A TICKET" LBC SAVOY THEATRE. OI-836 WESTMINSTER. nl.fl.U 02834. cc 379 4444 (no bko 01-836 2294240 966 or CC London MAOICIAN'S NEPHEW. Fninilan 16 THE LION.

THE WITCH A THE BARBICAN HALL. 01-638 6123. THE BAKER'S WIFE no no v. ro db. irrn ui-noo 3464 (24hr7day)0 1-379 62 19.

Grps 01-831 2771. 01-240 7941.01-8368BB9. IT'S MAGIC F.vo l-Sn, MK Wrd. A Sat. 2.30.(Or.

:rt.i."i.Dec.26-Jan. 6 if i. I ditlty 2.30 A 7.30. itild reduce avail at most perls.l Limited Season. Must End PLUS EXTRA XMAB MATS Dec.

26. 28, 29: Jan. 1,2 cit 2.45 pm. CC (bkp fre 240 7200(24 hrsl. 741 9999)379 4444.

MNtti. i on i i guMMucn ORCHESTRA OF EUROPE, Sattdor Vafih Andtas Schlff piano. by JOSEPH STEIN A STEP NSC WA RTZ. SIXTH HIT YEAR) STARLIGHT EXPRESS Muilcby ANDREWLLOYD WEBBER Lyric by RICHARD 5TILGOE Directed by TREVOR NUNN. OAPsCSonTues.

Mats. NOW BKO TO SEPT. LYRIC HammarsmNh. 01-741 2311 cc hko li m.836 FORTUNE. BO A CC 836 2238.

24hrCC bko fee 240 7200. MARK DOMINIC KINGSTON LETTS Susan Hill's THE WOMAN IN BLACK SPINE CHILLER. Gdn. "MASTERLY" D. Exp.

day mat. 2.30. Sat. 5.30 A 8.30. "BRrriSH FARCE AT ITS Evgs 7.45 pm.

Mats Wed. 2.30. Sat. 4.0 priiMorvath's FAITH I. 4.0 pm Hi rrmuary j.

ipb Acua PICCADILLY. H67 tun i-r nvry ynwni T. iranHia, SAVOY THEATRE. 01-836 ROY hv Ci.Hr.tnn Uim.l.. 867 1 11 379 4444.741 9999 mhhb.

n.ui-oio.i, croups 01-836 8889. Flmtcalt 24-hra 7 "AniORTSHARP SHOCK KACtftlw.s-T.,rne8- "ON- "if" tsia" pi KING THE MUSICAL Opens April 4, 1 990. day li. feel.Opei (bkg fee). FIRST RATS'" Ind.

Ii THE LONDON ORIGINAL PRINT FAIR AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS PICCADILLY, LONDON Wl FIVE CENTURIES OF FINE PRINTS INCLUDING WORKS BY -DURER, REMBRANDT, P1RANESI. GOYA. WHISTLER, GAUGUIN. MUNCH, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC. MATISSE, CHAGALL, MIRO, PICASSO, MOORE AND HOCKNEY ALL WORKS ARE FOR SALL FRIDAY 1 TO MONDAY 4 DECEMBER OPEN DAILY 11am TO 6pm STONSORtD BY ALLIANCE CAPITAL LIMITED Express.

Students 4). sudlo: TAKE TRANQUILLISERS TO OERRV COTTLE'S 'ALL NEW' CHRISTMAS CIRCUS In the comfort and warmth ol WE MBLEY CENTRE Dec. 23 to Jan. 14. BOOK NOW.

Tel. 01900 1234 nUDo DaVIIQ WINDSOR DAVIBS LINDA ANITA HAVDEN ORAHAM BRIAN STIRLING GODFREY RODGER DAVID GRIFFIN RUN FOR YOUR WIFE I Written and directed by HIS 7 1111 JA794444 741 (mod ui-m ofui.icvDi.o.a s. nuts, luc, 0.3II., NOWBOOKINGTO MAR. '90 SATURDAY NIGHT "Imminii, IIks( brio, punch I eNJOY IMYtJlLF Grin. A 8.30.

D'OYLY CARTE Jorfwft'Snln'loduc- "H'a auparb lhaatro" Mall on Sunday- Evh 7.30 Mats. Weds. Sat. 2.30. LAST TWO OAVO The Pled Piper Company in rAV enOHiv 01638 8891 cc 1 alDOM'M LOMllT LYRIC, Shaftesbury Ava.

437 3686 cc no bkn. Tee) 01-379 44441741 9999i(bkG (eel 240 7200.Gtps.9306123. lOwecksonly Sholfa Hancock PRIN with SUSIE BLAKE RUNNING COMEDY Ovr 2,700 MOe-splitllng ports "SHOULD RUN FOR LIFE." fee). DOROTHY A PETER TUTIN McENBRV "Superb "bnchartllna." What's On. "Excellent." Gdn.

CHILI BOUCHItH A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC by STEPHEN BONOHEIM WINNER 1989 STANDARD SPECIAL AWARD "Haunllnn.hllarlouBft OARRICK. Box Office CC 01. ST MARTIN'S. 836 1443. CC no.

ovy tvo. rues. 2.45. Sat. at 5.0 A 8.0 ninnay Thtaa thstiTM wrapt eanan era aids bt taltpfKWSOTllPMcftlOI.

Pr ICourtTheati iVrs'c COUNTRY'S TlfephOM SriM OatffcMflt IStDHMgai MmftNtoratOHfl Tel: 061-832 7200 eit 21S1 A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM Tonrt 7.W. Tom Of. a- A7.M TRAINS, new play by Steptirn "EXCELLENT ENTERTAINMENT THE MOUSETRAP OUR GOOD BEST PLAY Olivier Awards. 1988. 8.0.

Frl. A Sal. S.O and 8. 1 3. Frt.

5.0 ALL SEATS 7.50. STRAND. 836 2660 I 4 1 43. dnsokt Mtia si cut pneato tmx)ariuunbstonj psrtDmtincas Trans! from Hay market, Pec, 1 3..