Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  ‘I can’t think why it’s allowed!’ she has heard me cry, my voice breaking. ‘Fancy letting someone appear on television, in front of millions of people – some of them impressionable teenagers, some of them mere children – and say he believes in original sin!’

  ‘There, there,’ she murmurs.

  ‘He was wearing a clerical collar!’ I moan, shuddering at the recollection.

  ‘You must be brave, Michael.’

  ‘But I can’t help feeling that my trust has been abused. That’s what upsets me, you see. I put the television on expecting some sort of wholesome, decent entertainment – people bashing each other over the head and having babies and saying “bloody” – you know, our sort of thing. And what do they spring on me …?’

  ‘Try to take a broad view, Michael.’

  ‘I mean, we are a minority, after all, aren’t we? We deserve the same consideration that other minorities get, don’t we? Goodness me, some of us go to the most inordinate lengths to be respectful about the Catholics. Never mention their little troubles except in the most hushed and reverent tones.’

  ‘You’re not all that respectful about the Methodists, are you?’

  ‘The Methodists? Oh, for heaven’s sake! You don’t have to be respectful about the Methodists! That’s a different sort of thing entirely. But we’re very careful about of the feelings of Jews.’

  ‘What about Jehovah’s Witnesses and Plymouth Brethren?’

  ‘Oh, come, come! But take the Sikhs and the Quakers. We’re very reverent about them.’

  ‘And the Communists?’

  ‘Certainly not. Everyone’s nasty to the Communists. That’s what Communists are for.’

  I wonder if perhaps some of us shouldn’t bury our little differences, and get together on a broad platform of being sick and tired of all the rest of us. It could bring the brotherhood of man a little nearer.

  (1967)

  Smoothe’s law

  Of course, I’m entirely on the side of the nurses, God bless ’em (said Rollo Swavely, the well-known public relations consultant), but all this shindig about their pay has been damned unfair on Christopher Smoothe. I handle his private account, as you know, and I’ve seen the strain, the terrible sense of injustice, that he’s been labouring under these last few weeks.

  You see, Mike, everyone thinks it’s rotten luck that nurses get five pounds a week, or five pounds a month, or whatever it is. And of course luck’s the responsibility of Christopher, as Minister of Chance and Speculation. It’s not as if it was just the nurses – it’s been civil servants, teachers, railwaymen – one after the other. ‘What bad luck!’ says everyone – and Christopher gets the blame once again. Well, he’s just a human being like you and me, Mike. He can’t help worrying about it.

  That’s why some time ago he set up this National Wages Explanation Council (‘Nwexie’ to you), under the chairmanship of Arthur Weefellow, the Professor of Ancient Economics at Twicester. It’s not that he’s for one moment doubting the fundamental Conservative principle of leaving all human affairs to the free operation of chance. But he believes fervently that all the Government’s present difficulties can be solved by public relations, and as a genuinely constructive step in this direction he’s given Nwexie the task of discovering some general principles that would explain to the layman without mentioning the word chance just why the nation’s wage-structure takes the form it does.

  It’s a damned complicated business, Mike. I’ve been looking at their preliminary report on wages in what we call the devotional field. Take nursing, for instance – a job that clearly requires unlimited devotion. Obviously the general principle here is to make the wages as low as possible to keep out undesirable elements who would otherwise pour into nursing just to make a fast buck. But now we come up against a snag. What about surgeons? Don’t they need devotion? Does their high pay mean that all the operating-theatres in the country are full of undesirables just out for the cash?

  Well, I can tell you Nwexie took evidence on the last point from the PRO of the British Surgeons’ Association, and he assured them at first hand that in the case of surgeons high salaries and devotion are entirely compatible. So they had to amend the principle to read: The greater the devotion required for a job, the lower the wages – except where applicants are likely to have a standing conferred by class or education which would put them above sordid financial considerations.’

  But what about schoolteachers? A lot of them have a university education – and their salaries are derisory. So Nwexie amended the end of the formula to read: ‘… above sordid financial considerations – unless the work involves contact with minors, who could be corrupted by the flaunting of great wealth.’

  You’d have thought that covered just about every complexity wage-structure in the devotional field could possess. Far from it. What about bishops? Aren’t they well paid? And don’t they confirm children? So Nwexie had to go to work once again and add: ‘… corrupted by the flaunting of great wealth – save where the noxious effects of such flaunting are neutralised by suitably uplifting ecclesiastical surroundings.’

  We’re still not out of the wood, though. What about people in other devotional jobs, like advertising or public relations? What about all the advertisers who sell things to children? Am I supposed to go and conduct my ‘Meths for Men’ campaign, to get teenagers drinking methylated spirits, in church, just so that I can justify being paid more than five pounds a week? So they had to add something about either uplifting ecclesiastical surroundings or a beneficial effect on profits.

  And so on, and so on, until they had a formula twelve pages long. It certainly brings a gleam of logic into what at first sight one might think was entirely illogical. Nwexie wanted to reduce it to a simpler formula for the benefit of the man in the street. Christopher turned down ‘You get what you grab’ as being against the public interest. So it looks as if Smoothe’s First Law of the Diffusion of Income, as I’ve suggested calling it, is going to read: Wages are what they are.’ Drink up, old boy.

  (1962)

  Songs without words

  The news that English National Opera were proposing to introduce surtitles, even though they always sing in English, has had much the same effect upon a lot of people as the news of Edgardo’s betrayal upon her betrothed in Lucia di Lammermoor. They went mad. Hands have been wrung, letters have rained down upon editors. An article in the Independent described the decision as ‘corporate suicide’. Surtitles, said its author, Mark Pappenheim, result in ‘an undue emphasis on “what’s going on”. As if any real opera was ever about anything as banal as narrative action.’

  Verdi, he argued, ‘never expected every word to be heard – he tried instead to make a few key words (parole sceniche, he called them) really come across – words like madre, amore, morte.’ Every syllable of Mr Pappenheim’s argument was clearly distinguishable.

  Apparently ENO agree, because the report, like the report of Edgardo’s faithlessness, turns out to be false. The surtitles will be merely an experiment at some performances, to replace signing for the hard of hearing.

  When it comes to operatic dialogue, though, even sung in English, we’re all hard of hearing. I certainly longed for a surtitle or two during ENO’s current Khovanshchina. This magnificent production of Mussorgsky’s great historical epic, which portrays seventeenth-century Russia’s belated emergence from mediaeval barbarism into Peter the Great’s slightly more up-to-date variant of it, has (for once) been properly and universally acclaimed by the critics. But, as they have also noted, its plot is as tangled as tights in a washing machine.

  This is not the fault of the production, or of ENO (who have provided no less than three separate accounts of the plot in the programme, together with an excellent historical background and the genealogy of the Romanovs). It caused me particular difficulties, though. I saw it with a group of friends who in each interval flatteringly turned to me, as someone who knows Russian, and asked me to tell them – well, yes
– what was going on.

  Who were the Streltsy, they demanded. Why were they Archers in some versions, and Musketeers in others? Why did Khovansky appear to be supporting the Tsar in Scene One, and then getting murdered by him in Scene Five? Which side was Golitsyn on? Which side was anyone on? What did the Old Believers believe? Who was this Susanna who suddenly appears out of nowhere in Scene Three and starts hurling accusations around? Had she and Figaro fled to Moscow to escape the attentions of Almaviva? Why were there three accounts of the plot in the programme?

  My knowledge of Russian didn’t help me very much, since it was being sung in English. For myself, of course, I am far above any banal interest in the narrative content of opera, but my companions seemed to place an undue emphasis on the question, even without surtitles to encourage them, and my reputation and authority declined from interval to interval.

  It was not as if I hadn’t prepared myself – I’d read the three accounts of the plot in the programme, and studied two different works of reference in advance. All five versions went out of my head as soon as the curtain went up. I listened hard for any helpful parole sceniche. But you needed a little more to go on in this case than madre, amore, morte. You were hoping for something more like ‘… son of Tsar Fyodor III’s father Alexei not by Maria Miloslavskaya but by Natalia Naryshkina … Vasili Grigorievich, arrested on false testimony for plotting to usurp the deputy-chairmanship of the Moscow City Council Cleansing Department … Grigory Vasilievich, supposed second cousin of the disgraced ex-sub-Metro-politan of Kiev …’

  But the bits you actually do catch on these occasions tend not to be quite as sceniche as you require. They’re more usually things like: ‘Alas … Extraordinary to relate … nevertheless … Aha …! Oho …! Oh …! Ah …!’ (Because of course there’s nothing singers sing more distinctly than open vowel sounds, unconstrained by consonants.) Also: ‘Who is this …? What are you saying …? What is going on …?’ Because probably the characters can’t catch much more than we can of what’s being said. Most of them in Khovanshchina are also illiterate – they haven’t even been able to read the programme.

  If only Mussorgsky, who wrote his own libretto, had realised that opera wasn’t about anything as banal as narrative action he could have saved himself, the singers, and us a great deal of trouble. The discovery has certainly simplified the titanic struggle I have been having with my commission from ENO to write the libretto for Eurosh-china, Harrison Birtwistle’s vast new historical opera about the crucial negotiations involved in the emergence of the European Union in its present form.

  In this mighty confrontation of historical forces as I now conceive it, the singers will make up their own text as they go along in all the inaudible sections, with as many open vowels and as few consonants as they like. All I’m going to provide them with is the audible bits. The job’s as good as done.

  Act I. The Grand’ Place in Brussels. A vast crowd of undersecretaries, lobbyists, political columnists, disgruntled pig-farmers, speechwriters, and Autocue drivers is surging colourfully around, singing with great conviction about some policy they are strongly in favour of – possibly connected with set-aside payments for turnips, possibly with standardised inflation pressures for children’s balloons. A bloody confrontation ensues with another crowd who are strongly opposed to it.

  Enter LANCELOT HIGGLE (baritone), a journalist who can usually be relied upon for a few quick pars of historical background, to fill us in on the development of the Union so far.

  HIGGLE (espansivo)

  Ah! Long and meandering is the path

  That led us hither … You recall

  The basket of currencies … the shadowed Mark …

  (Not Mark Thatcher – another one …)

  But long, long before … joint working-parties at ministerial level …

  Agenda … referenda … An end

  To centuries of conflict … Alsace-Lorraine …

  Franco-Prussian War …

  Holy Roman Empire … Huns … Gauls …

  Neolithic peoples … Ah! Oh …!

  500 words, invoice follows.

  He drinks himself to death. Enter the COMMISSIONER of some country whose identity is completely obliterated by a blast on the trombones just as his name is announced. He is deep in conversation with a SECRET EMISSARY FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC. Unless it’s A COMPLETE IMBECILE TO CHECK THE PLUMBING.

  COMMISSIONER (molto moderato)

  Annexe B to Directive 5Z9 …

  Revised draft … Amendment

  To Clause 15g …

  Your Government’s views …?

  EMISSARY Ah!

  COMMISSIONER Are? This is most interesting …

  Are what?

  EMISSARY Aha!

  COMMISSIONER Are hard? And fast? I see …

  Well – a helpful and constructive exchange of views …

  So vital … maintaining a dialogue …

  Each other’s point of view …

  EMISSARY What?

  COMMISSIONER Remarkably … For the time of year …

  Enter HUGH PAYNE (tenor), a British MP who was intending to vote for the European budget, but who failed to hear the division bell because of a sudden tutti. Unless it’s BILL someone (bass), who was going to vote against, but who failed to hear the voice of conscience for much the same reason.

  COMMISSIONER … Hugh Payne?

  PAYNE Who’s paying? Who’s paying what …?

  COMMISSIONER I mean, you’re Bill … You’re Bill …

  PAYNE My bill? What bill? Not my bill at the Ritz …?

  COMMISSIONER The writs …? What’s this about writs?

  PAYNE … Issuing ’em!

  COMMISSIONER Bless you.

  Enter LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR.

  LUCIA I seem to be … a little confused …

  Could somebody tell me …

  What … in a word … is going on?

  Everyone comes surging hopefully downstage and gazes up into the darkness above the proscenium arch. But, fortunately for the aesthetic purity of Europe, up there nothing is going on at all.

  (1994)

  Spock’s Guide to Parent Care

  PARENTS ARE JUST LARGE HUMAN BEINGS. It’s only natural for a small child to feel a little daunted by the hard work and responsibility of coping with parents. All parents get balky from time to time, and go through phases which worry their children, and all children get tired and discouraged and wonder whether they’re doing the right thing.

  The important thing to remember is that most parents, deep down inside, want nothing more than to be good ones. A parent may act tough and cocky, but at heart he wants to be one of the gang. He wants to learn what’s expected of him as parent and do it. What he needs from you above all is plenty of encouragement, and plenty of reassurance that he’s doing all right.

  EVERY PARENT IS DIFFERENT. This one flies into a fury at the sight of crayoning on the wallpaper. That one bursts into tears. Yet another goes into a sulk and won’t say anything all afternoon. All these are perfectly normal, healthy reactions. I’d be inclined to be suspicious of the parent who seems a little too good to be true. He or she may be deprived of emotional experience for lack of opportunity. I think I’d ask myself in this case if I was drawing on the wallpaper enough.

  THEY AREN’T AS FRAGILE AS THEY LOOK. Handle them confidently. Many parents look as though they’ll have a nervous breakdown if you bang your toy on the table just once more. Don’t worry – nine times out of ten they won’t.

  DON’T BE AFRAID TO INSIST ON YOUR OWN STANDARDS. There’s been a great swing away from the over-permissiveness which used to be the fashion, when a parent’s every whim was regarded as sacred. Nowadays we’ve come to realise that on the whole people don’t have any very clear ideas about manners or morals until they become parents, when they hastily start to make them up as they go along. They’re secretly very grateful for a little firm but tactful guidance.

  I don’t mean by this that you should squash th
e parents’ own spontaneous efforts to help. But what they eventually learn to think right and proper will be decided very largely by the way you act anyhow.

  PLAY IS EDUCATION, TOO. All the time you are with your parents you are educating them in tolerance and self-discipline. Playing games and romping with them is specially useful. It’s not only great fun for them – it’s helping to form their characters. Various games such as hitting your little brother, and then bursting into tears before he does, train their powers of detection and judgement. Jumping on their stomachs after meals and finding reasons to get them up in the middle of the night develop their resistance to hardship, and generate a sense of righteousness which will enable them to face cheating their colleagues the next day with an easy conscience.

  TEMPER TANTRUMS. Almost all parents have temper tantrums from time to time. You have to remember that between the ages of 20 and 60 parents are going through a difficult phase of their development. They have got to a stage in their exploration of the world at which they find it is rather smaller than they thought. They are discovering the surprising limitations of their personality, and learning to be dependent. It’s natural enough for them to want to explode at times.

  It’s no use arguing with a parent who’s in this sort of state. The best thing is just to let him cool off. But you might try to distract him and offer him a graceful way out by suggesting something that’s fun to do, like taking it out on your little brother instead.

  GO EASY ON KIDDING. Most parents enjoy a joke. If you get hold of a good one, try it on them 20 or 30 times, just to show them what it’s like being on the receiving end of the family’s sense of humour. But I think I’d give it a rest after that, in case it causes nightmares.

  JEALOUSY. Most parents are worried, though they probably wouldn’t admit it, that they’re not really good enough, and that other parents are better at the job than they are. In one parent it will take the form of worrying that his children are not as pretty, or as well-behaved, or as intelligent as other people’s. Another will try to resolve his fears by telling himself that other parents don’t really look after their children properly.