Mariella Frostrup

I have finally got round to reading an interview in last Monday's Independent with Mariella Frostrup - she of the blond hair and gravelly voice, who when not lending her gravel to innumerable voice overs for TV adverts, presents the Book Show for Sky Arts. Bravo to Mariella for the last sentence in her piece: "I don't think I'm the only person for whom its harder and harder to find something I want to watch on television". She is, of course echoing a sentiment that is becoming more prevalent as television programming becomes less geared to an important sector of the audience.

Of course it is silly to wear rose tinted specs - there is still a lot of fine programming available and when the BBC, in particular present series such as Andrew Marr's new history of Britain and the estimable "Seven Ages of Rock" we should all breath a sigh of relief. But Mariella's point about the stranglehold on arts television by Melvyn Bragg and Alan Yentob is well made; these gentlemen run a fiefdom which is well nigh impregnable, which is bad news not only for other practitioners, but the for audience.

I do a lot of business with Sky Arts and, although they don't actually have much money to spend, I agree wholeheartedly with Ms Frostrup that they are "clever people" and that they realise that audiences are "sick of being fed patronising rubbish". Sooner or later, other enlightened broadcasters will connect with this and think seriously about aiming interesting and varied arts programming at the not inconsiderable niche that is currently somewhat disenfranchised. Whether this material is provided conventionally or by video on demand, IPTV and all the other new delivery methods, is the exciting bit - all we have to do is find a way of financing the films that will, I believe, ultimately be needed in sharply increasing amounts.

I have one caveat with last week's interview: Please, Mariella, don't bother with the feminist angle. I'm sure you have had to work proportionately harder to get where you are than if you were a man, but the reality is that British television has an unusually high proportion of women in senior and key positions. Indeed, in arts presentation, Newsnight Review regularly features Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney as presenters - one might argue that it would be better to use people who are actually from the world they are analysing, but these ladies don't do a bad job. So, Mariella, maybe don't be bashful about your undeniable good looks and charm - use them in conjunction with your passion for the arts and create a quiet revolution from within the system.

Farewell to Music Theatre London

Music Theatre London has been a significant influence on opera performance practice over the last fifteen years. It has, I hope given pleasure to a lot of people and provided employment for a lot of actors, musicians and technicians, (albeit at the lower end of the financial scale!) But, like all good things, it must come to an end.

I had long ago given up applying for finance from the Arts Council - MTL was clearly considered to be "not quite the thing" and the application process is so convoluted that it only seems to work for large companies, who can afford the time and personnel to wade through the paperwork. its also fair to say that I have not been popular with the funders - some years ago a senior figure in the touring department declined an invitation to a production because she was "scared of Tony Britten" - which either means I'm some sort of psychopath or she was a tad on the inadequate side.

Sponsorship is also hard to come by unless you can devote a massive amount of time to it and I need to spend a massive amount of time making Capriol Films a success. So the trustees of MTL have decided that we will make the company dormant. This does not preclude starting up again in the future, or indeed trading under the name if an interesting offer to produce a show from a third party comes our way.

I will be making strenuous efforts to produce more films like "Boheme" and "Falstaff", there is, after all a quite large catalogue of MTL productions which lend themselves very well to this medium. So if anyone reading this has not registered their interest in future television, DVD and Internet downloads of MTL material, please, go to the contacts page on this website and let us know that you want to be kept in touch. You are part of a niche market that is increasingly poorly served by conventional broadcasting and I intend to do something about it.

Sky Arts Falstaff

Oh dear, another sales pitch! As I type this, our very funny version of Verdi's "Falstaff" is being broadcast on Sky Arts. If any one is watching, or wants to watch when it is repeated on Wednesday at 2.00pm, Thursday at 10.00am! or Sunday at 2.oopm, please - enjoy.

But perhaps more importantly for Capriol and our plans for the future, we will be putting out a DVD early next year, in partnership with a leading classical CD company. If enough people want to buy the DVD, which will also contain a "behind the scenes" documentary and, hopefully, a very silly and amusing five minute short made by some of the cast, we will make it available in advance for a discount price. If you are keen on this film, please go to the contact us section of this website and register your interest and we will attempt a "rush release!"

And now I must rush!

Keep on doing it

"Keep On Doing It" is the title of a track by saxophonist Tom Scott, which we aspiring jazz rockers used to play in the seventies. I daresay if I were to get together with some of the musicians I knew from that time, we could still play it - after a fashion. That's because musicians, like actors, do keep on doing it, long after normal folk would be tending the roses and sipping their Ovaltine.

On Sunday evening I was at the reunion of people closest to the legendary Olympic Studios, in Barnes, South West London. It was twenty years ago that Olympic was purchased by Virgin, and Bransonised into a state of the art modern studio complex, devoid of character, decent sound and fun. One day I will write about Keith Grant, the engineer who ran Olympic from the start until the takeover and who's musical brilliance was matched by his terrifying expertise at practical jokes.

But I was struck on Sunday by how the musicians attending were still fulfilled; older, generally poorer, but making music on their terms and distilling years of experience into an art which keeps them youthful. Then on Monday I was at a fiftieth birthday party for an old girlfriend, who plays the trumpet in a big band. A segment of the band was playing, and I was delighted by the storming trumpet playing of a guy named Ronnie Hughes, once a top flight pro, now, well into his eighties, playing jazz, unfettered by concerns about the next gig, his status and all those things that make professional life so difficult.

Actors are the same, they only tend to stop when they drop. I was going to comment that there must be some connection between performing and longevity, but then I remembered that politicians tend to go on for ever as well. Oh well.