When Herbert von Karajan was at his celestial height in the 1960s, juggling conducting duties at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, his musicians liked to tell a joke. ‘Karajan gets in a taxi, and the driver asks, “Where to?” Karajan says, “It doesn’t matter, they want me everywhere.”’ Not bad for a German joke.
You want to dump on Trump? Send for Schama! A fresh look at Rembrandt? There’s a professor at Columbia who knows everything!
Who is the Karajan of our day, hopping from gig to gig with the assurance of the born maestro? It must be Simon Schama, historian supreme, and transatlantic darling of the telly. You want to dump on Trump? Send for Schama! A fresh look at Rembrandt? There’s a professor at Columbia who knows everything! Can Tottenham light up White Hart Lane? We know the chap who can flick the switch!
His latest television series for the BBC, where he serves as a regimental goat for matters cultural, is The Story of Us, a three-parter about that perennial: ‘who we are now’. It’s fair to say the reviews have been patchy, as they were for the last series he fronted, The Romantics and Us, which went out five years ago.
Us. Note that word. Schama is fond of the first person plural, those things which apparently bind us together, and fonder still of the first person singular. A gifted chronicler of the past from his earliest days at Cambridge, he is less trustworthy on the present.
He gets jolly batey, too, if anybody presents a challenge. Ten years ago, when Rod Liddle offered the perfectly reasonable view on Question Time that unrestricted immigration might not be for the benefit of all, Schama denounced his ‘suburban’ mind. As observers were swift to note, the only suburbanite on the panel that night was Schama, a long-time resident of Westchester County, where well-heeled New Yorkers frolic.
He was at it again in a recent interview, making sure Observer readers knew he loved ‘a Persian café’ round the corner from his London gaff. Goodness gracious. There have been Persian cafés in the city since Xerxes said he fancied a cheese cob. ‘Persian’ in this instance, of course, means ‘multi-cultural’, and an unthinking multi-culturalism is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Schama was not always a bore. His BBC series on British history, the power of art and the story of the Jews revealed a man of intelligence, obviously, and occasional wit. His books on the Dutch Golden Age, The Embarrassment of Riches, and on national mythology, Landscape and Memory, are very fine.
But, as John Updike wrote, fame is the mask that wears into the face. Over the years, Schama has been undone by flattery, and his telly scholarship has lost its sheen. Where he once stood in the tradition of public intellectuals established by George Steiner, Jonathan Miller and Anthony Burgess, he is now barely one step up from Frank Bough, who enjoyed agreeable holidays with his wife Nesta.
The rot set in eight years ago with Civilisations (plural), a self-conscious attempt to counter Kenneth Clark’s magnificent 1969 study of Civilisation (singular). Schama shared the presenting duties with Mary Beard and David Olusoga, and it was not a success. Viewers had begun to tire of Schama’s nodding dog manner, and his irritating glottal stopping. I’m a common man, he seemed to be saying, and that’s never a good sign.
For some reason, known only by himself and his confessor, he loves the company of pop stars. So The Story of Us kicked off with Who Are We Now?, and Jarvis Cocker talking about Alan Sillitoe’s novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It’s a terrific book, and made a fine film, but what Cocker knows about Sillitoe’s world could be written in capital letters on the back of a tram ticket.
In the second programme, Whose Britain Is It Anyway?, the groovy scholar palled up with a member of The Specials, who enjoyed ten minutes of glory four decades ago. He tried to have us believe The Beatles were influenced by calypso (a meaningless nod to the Windrush generation), when everybody knows the Fab Four owed far more to the northern music hall.
The concluding programme, Our Contested Land, brought Seamus Heaney, a fine if overpraised poet, and that champion preener Bono. Culture, it was claimed, helped to knock together a few Irish heads. A poem a day keeps the Shinners away! What ‘famous Seamus’ had to do with ‘us’ was not explained. As he was never slow to point out, ‘my passport’s green’.
Up they popped, members of Schama’s cultural caravan: Cliff Richard (no sniggering), Frank Cottrell Boyce, Pauline Boty (an artist), Derek Jarman and Clive Myrie. Alan Titchmarsh must have been washing his hair when Schama called, otherwise he might have been on.
It’s thin stuff, but the glottal-stopper can get away with more or less anything. The BBC attitude seems to be: ‘Yes, your majesty; no, your majesty; just how low should we go, your majesty?’ As far as they are concerned, he can defecate marzipan and slide up pillars, and the clowns will cheer. And he’s ready for his close-up.
This article is free to read
To unlock more articles, subscribe to get 3 months of unlimited access for just $5
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in