The Stage

Chit Chat - Write potty mouth

Published Tuesday 3 February 2009 at 11:40 by Tabard

Much amusement all round at Sir Christopher Frayling’s farewell speech at RIBA.

Firstly - and intentionally - at Frayling’s own observation about the arts council’s founder John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes was the council’s first chairman and drafted its charter. However, as Frayling pointed out: “Keynes drafted it, but died on Easter Sunday, 1946, before it was ratified, so although he was the first chairman, he never actually chaired a single meeting of the council.”

Then, he added wryly: “I can’t help but notice that of the portraits of all the previous chairmen of the arts council at Great Peter Street, he’s the only one with a smile on his face.”

The biggest laughs, though, were reserved for the Q&A section of the evening, when film and theatre director Mike Leigh stood up to put the record straight about a reported dispute between him and Frayling (perhaps the reason Sir Christopher was unsmiling…).

According to reports, Frayling had claimed that Leigh had cornered him in a lift at the Algonquin Hotel in New York and said, “What are you doing to the National Student Drama Festival, you shit?”, when the NSDF’s funding was under threat last year.

“I’d like to put on record that I did not call you ‘a shit’,” said Leigh to Frayling at the end of his speech. “I know that you could not have told a journalist that I did.”

So, what does Leigh believe he said? “I wrote to you last week.” That’s all.

Oh well, an easy mix-up to make.