Margaret Hodge's DCMS diary

Christmas is nearly upon us, and conventions, old and new, crowd in. Outdoor skating has become a staple in recent years at all sorts of places at this time of year: Somerset House, the Natural History Museum and Hyde Park to name but three from the DCMS world in London. For me, ice skating is one of those things – like leather trousers and karaoke – that it’s perfectly acceptable not to embrace as your 50th birthday recedes into the mists of time. But it’s a great thing to watch, and I’m pleased that our sponsored bodies allow their magnificent settings to become ice venues at this time of year. Long may it continue.

And it was a magical frosty morning when I visited Bushy Park and Hampton Court Palace last week. Distant glimpses of deer between the trees and sudden green flashes of cockatiels both gave the visit a slight flavour of CS Lewis, while the craftsmanship I saw in the restoration work taking place to Henry VIII’s 500 year old astronomical clock was also from another era. Later I met the conservators who are repairing the Royal Pew balcony in the Chapel Royal. This structure, built by Cardinal Wolsey and subsequently altered at the command of a number of monarchs starting with Henry VIII (a mere ten years later) and carrying on up to Queen Anne, who brought in Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbons, is now being restored. Hidden steel beams and amazing woodworking by 21st century craftsmen were an object lesson in just how much incredible specialist expertise we can draw on, and how precious these skills are. 2009 sees us commemorating the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, and the Royal Palaces are planning some good events.

I also looked in on the new Clore Learning Centre which opened in March where actors in Tudor costume were bringing the past alive for a group of excited schoolchildren.

Other highlights last week included giving a speech on National Heritage Day at the restored Art Deco Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, which provided a timely reminder to me – as Films Minister – of how a visit to the cinema used to be. A grimmer heritage was on show at the Museum in Docklands which I visited later in the week. The ‘London, Sugar and Slavery’ exhibition was well-judged, and a fitting product of this bicentenary year. The heritage sector have done really well in the way they have commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. I think we’ve all got a bit to learn about how marking the past can help us better understand the present, and then use that knowledge to help create a better future. We’re now thinking about ways to build on this – how we can develop such commemorations to strengthen the sense of identity our communities feel.

Ian McKellen’s King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn, was a hugely powerful experience. It certainly made me think about the play in new ways, and the energy and talent of all concerned with the production, on and off stage, made for a really memorable theatrical experience.

I started this piece with a reference to ‘new’ Christmas traditions. I will end with a couple of ‘old’ ones that I am very much looking forward to in the days to come: The Nutcracker at the ROH and Puss in Boots at the Hackney Empire. Two lovely family outings, and two further jewels, I’m sure, in what has been a brilliant year for me. I very much hope 2007 has been good for you too.

Merry Christmas, and I’ll be back in 2008.

Posted by Margaret Hodge at 03:27 PM | Permalink

The British Museum recently played host to the launch of the Portable Antiquities Annual Report, and I was pleased to be there to do the ministerial thing and mark its publication with a few warm words. I’d better explain at this point what Portable Antiquities are. They’re items that have been found – usually by metal detectorists, but sharp-eyed gardeners play a part too – on or under the ground, and which are more than 300 years old but not made of a precious metal. So it’s coins, belt buckles, weapons and trinkets. One item I was allowed to actually pick up (wearing conservators’ gloves, of course) was an exquisite, decorated copper-alloy comb which was around 2,000 years old – extraordinary to think that such craft and workmanship was taking place when the tools to create it must have been so rudimentary. Rather humbling to hold that comb and make the connection to an era understood to us today in only the broadest terms.

Last year around 60,000 items were reported and it’s estimated that more than 6,000 people regularly go out hunting for more. I think this is a brilliantly British pastime: inexplicable to the outside observer, but engrossing to the person doing it. I was very pleased to pay tribute to them all.

Underground finds of a more exotic nature were on show some days later at the opening of ‘The Vault’ at The Natural History Museum. If I had to sum it up in one word, I think that word would be awesome (in the literal, rather than Hollywood, sense). A lump of rock from Mars which looks like nothing so much as a broken cobble stone; the Devonshire emerald, a mere 1,400 carats of cracked Colombian gemstone; and the Aurora Collection of 296 naturally coloured diamonds arranged in a neat grid, looking (if you half close your eyes) like a Damien Hirst spot painting were just a few of the items on show that made me catch my breath.

I also found myself at the Imperial War Museum this week. It must be more than 15 years since I was last there. At that stage it was part of the weekend child visit rota that London parents relentlessly followed: the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, the dinosaurs in Kensington, the pelicans in St James’s (with a fairy tale view of Buckingham Palace thrown in)….. But returning to Kennington without a kite’s tail of small children behind me, I was delighted to find a complete change of atmosphere. What I remember in the past as being a bit of a glorification of war has now become a really interesting interpretation of social history. It was full to the brim with school children, and the educational value they were getting from it all was etched on their curious faces. The Children’s War and ‘50s house took me back as well: with memories of my own childhood which I thought were long buried.

I hadn’t really thought of my cultural week as having a heritage theme, but I suppose it did. Unveiling a blue plaque on the house in Soho Square where Mary Seacole, the mixed race British ‘doctress’ who worked heroically in the Crimean War lived, I was struck by what a really brilliant institution blue plaques are. An unobtrusive part of the street landscape that makes us stop, read, reflect and – for a moment – connect with whoever lived there. And this blue plaque also reminds us of the multi cultural past which was, even then, a distinctive feature of London. English Heritage, who run the scheme, can be proud of their work.

Richard Brooks, the beady-eyed but always charming arts correspondent on The Sunday Times, criticised me in his Biteback column last weekend for only ever saying nice things in this diary about the arts and culture that I encounter. I sort of see what he means, but it’s nonetheless true that the great majority of what I go to is really good. I prefer to draw a veil over the (very) few turkeys that come my way. But that said, a trip to The Golden Compass did leave me cold. The special effects were brilliant, as they always are, but as I sat letting it all wash over me, I wondered who it would really appeal to. It’s rated PG, but this P would not G anyone of less than secondary school age to go and see it – too dark, scary and unsettling, in my personal opinion. So there we are, Richard. Although I suspect ‘not really my cup of tea’ probably won’t pass the Brooks test of critical credibility. But don’t forget, I’m not a critic – my job is to champion arts and culture in its many forms. That doesn’t mean I have to like it all, but I do sometimes have to be a little more circumspect than others in the audience.

Finally though, I did enjoy the magic of Warhorse at the National and the brilliantly evocative designs of Ancient Egypt by Zandra Rhodes in the Coliseum’s new production of Aida. Both highly recommended.

Posted by Margaret Hodge at 09:39 AM | Permalink