A.O.B.
No way to treat a lady
Published: 23 October 2008
Kevin Spacey didn’t star in the 1968 thriller No Way to Treat a Lady; the late Rod Steiger did (with Lee Remick and George Segal). Such is the passion for remakes, however, that we may yet see Mr Spacey in the Steiger part.
In Mr Spacey’s current role as artistic director of London’s The Old Vic theatre, however, The Governance Partnership wishes he would see one lady better treated. We refer to Emma Cons, who The Old Vic website describes as ‘a leading social reformer’.
In 1880 Miss Cons took over a dive called the New Victoria Theatre, ‘a licensed pit of darkness, a trap of temptation, profligacy and ruin’, reopening it as The Royal Victoria Coffee and Music Hall, ‘a cheap and decent place of amusement on strict temperance lines’.
Miss Cons dropped the word ‘theatre’ because of its ‘impure associations’, and brought Shakespeare and opera to the poor of a part of Lambeth which had little else to offer but dodgy pubs and (in Terry Pratchett’s phrase) ‘ladies of negotiable virtue’.
In 1912, the year of Miss Cons’ death, her niece Lilian Baylis re-applied for a theatre licence.
The Old Vic’s present owners, Sally Greene’s Old Vic Theatre Trust 2000 (members include Sir Elton John and Stephen Daldry) brought in Mr Spacey, and the Old Vic again became a producing house. But all that’s apparently left the The Old Vic too pleased with itself to honour Emma Cons, from whose work at the Vic we can trace the origins of the National Theatre, The English National Opera and the Royal Ballet.
On the Waterloo Road corner of the Vic’s façade is a fine plaque commemorating Miss Cons as founder of the theatre, and her service to the community. It has been there for many years, and has long been illegible. Traffic fumes have eaten away at the inscription, and the present owners have sloshed paint over it.
The Old Vic Theatre Trust 2000 maintains Miss Cons’ tradition of local service by offering discounts to Lambeth people and to the elderly, and Kevin Spacey ensures they have shows to see. Why not go the extra few yards, Mr Spacey, and encourage the owners of the Old Vic to pay its founder, Emma Cons, the compliment of restoring her plaque for all to see? This really is no way to treat a lady.
Ross Davies is a partner in The Governance Partnership.