Gilbert's Glory

This week, on the run up to the Centenary (29 May), I suddenly seem to be everywhere. I was interviewed for a series which is on BBC Radio 4 all this week, Gilbert's Glory--an excellent set of programmes with a good range of talking heads and a proper celebratory tone. I almost cheered when Mike Leigh said, clearly and boldly, that Gilbert should be in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey! His tone was defiant enough to make it a talking point if we want.

I guess it may be possible that people will find this blog if they're looking for info about my biopgraphy after hearing the programme. Possible, not probable. But just in case, yes, my name is Andrew Crowther, and yes, I have written a new biography of Gilbert (some of the new info is used in Gilbert's Glory). The book's title is Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan (hence the blog title). It's a really good book and you should buy it now and if you're a journalist you should review it now. Favourably. You can find it on Amazon here.

On Monday I did my talk at the Redbridge Book and Media Festival, at Hainault Library. A good turnout--about 30--and the talk went well, with a very lively Q&A session afterwards. Nick Dobson, who organised the event, is lovely and charming. We drove there and back; by the end of Tuesday I was exhausted, even though it was my girlfriend who was driving!

A discussion which I had with Thos Ribbits and Jerry Pinel back in April is now available as a podcast. I haven't had the courage to listen to it yet, but I remember it as being very lively.

Well, all this is very nice and gratifying. If there's nothing about the book in the papers this weekend I'll a) get very depressed; b) feel angry and frustrated; c) not feel very surprised; and d) publish here some of the material which I have offered to a famous Sunday paper without them even bothering to reply.

Publicity

It's been a few days since I wrote an entry here, so I'd better bring you up to date. I've been busy being interviewed on BBC Radio--Radio Scotland, Lincolnshire, York, and Leeds. I don't feel like a natural broadcaster at all--I hesitate too much and in at least one interview replied to every question with the word "Absolutely." Still, that's done now. On 23 May I'm appearing at the Redbridge Media and Literature Festival talking about Gilbert, and on 12 June I'll do another talk at Waterstones in Bradford. These should be less stressful (I think!) because at least I'll be able to see my audience.

I've had a five star review for the book on Amazon.co.uk, which is brilliant, and Stage should be publishing an interview/review in a week or two. 23-27 May sees the BBC Radio 4 series Gilbert's Glory, including soundbites from me and a plug for the book, so fingers crossed, we may get some new readers from that as well.

There's a quite painful split in my life at the moment. It's all very successful in terms of public face--I have a book out, it's very well received so far (in so far as there has been any reception at all), and I'm actually being heard by more people than have ever heard me before, even if they didn't especially want to. But at the same time, I am jobless and effectively penniless. I actually have little idea what the future holds. It may end in disaster, and quite soon. I can only keep faith in my star, which has actually treated me pretty well in life so far. I don't know, maybe most writers are like this. But it's quite scary.

Bourgeois Attitudes

In the early part of his career, Gilbert wrote regularly for the comic paper Fun. One of his regular pseudonyms was The Comic Physiognomist (the C.P.). In the issue for 9 March 1867 he wrote in one of these columns:

"Man was sent into the world to contend with man, and to get the advantage of him in every possible way. Whenever the C.P. happens to see a human being in the act of assisting, directly or indirectly, another human being, he pictures to himself a foot-race in which the candidates are constantly giving place to each other from motives of sheer politeness. The great object of life is to be first at the winning-post, and so that a man attains that end, and yet goes conscientiously over the whole course, it matters nothing how many of his fellow candidates he hustles on the way."

Of course Gilbert was being funny. But he was also, I am almost sure, being quite serious. This is how Gilbert saw life. He did not, I believe, want to see it this way; he was by nature a dreamy and withdrawn character, much the happiest in the illusory world of the theatre. But he learned as a teenager that not to keep your eye firmly on the main chance was to lose that chance and was to become a failure. And Gilbert learned his lesson.

His 1877 play Engaged is a bitter exposition of this view of life, in which everyone is motivated entirely by selfish and monetary motives. It is so keenly meant and so real that it is the funniest thing he ever wrote. It is a vision of Victorian society both as it saw itself--as unfailingly genteel--and as it was--unfailingly brutal.

Now here's a quotation from the 1848 Communist Manifesto:

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors', and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.... In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.... The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."

My attention was drawn to this passage recently and it made me gasp. It is a complete explanation of Gilbert's attitudes to society and to the aristocracy (whom he despised). He was a Bourgeois in the sense meant by the Communists. It may be worth while to add that the Communist Manifesto praised the Bourgeoisie for these attitudes.

Counting my Blessings

The continuing absence of reviews of my book, among other things (such as the fact that the company I was interviewed by on Tuesday still haven't got back to me and my money situation is not brilliant), has led to my going through some pretty black moods of late. Have I wasted two years of my life?

So maybe I need to focus on the good things that have been happening to me. I have done four radio interviews--the last one, for BBC Radio Lincolnshire last Sunday, was actually rather fun--and, who knows, maybe they have led to a few more sales. I have a talk coming up at the Redbridge Media Festival in London (23 May). I have an offer on signed copies of the book, and people do keep requesting these. If I'm struggling to keep afloat, that's my fault; I should have asked extortionate prices for signed copies.

Some people I respect have said very nice things about the book. That it's the best biography of Gilbert yet written, that it's readable (a very rare quality in a biography these days).

Maybe, just maybe, I will get money from the book as well. Maybe, just maybe, people will start asking me to write articles for money on the back of it. It hasn't happened so far, but who knows? I want to be a professional writer; I believe the book shows I have the skills to do it. It will only take a few appropriate people to agree with this for the whole situation to change.

If the prospective employers phone me back, that will be good, too. Quite soon for preference.