Michael Coveney gives Quentin Letts a lashing

One of my favourite bloggers, Michael Coveney – who should be reinstated as the Mail theatre critic in my view (but would he have them?) – thanks Madame Arcati for naming the Mail’s right-wing all-rounder Quentin Letts as the creep who has been writing horrid things about him in Private Eye.

“It seems rather a grubby way of earning a few extra quid,” Coveney writes before noting Letts' Carmen Jones interval chit-chat with the Standard editor Veronica Wadley. “Let's hope she had a jolly good laugh at Master Letts's peevish skewering of her irritable theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh in the latest Eye. De Jongh's 'crime' was to stretch his legs during the technical hiccup at the Joseph first night and inform a security guard (or possibly Bill Kenwright) that he was a "f---ing theatre critic."

He then goes onto deprecate Lett’s “graceless” and “unfunny” comments about Thelma Holt and David Liddiment. It is no secret, of course, that Letts - or "the owlish sneak" as Coveney calls him - supplements his considerable six-figure Mail fee with a steady stream of £50 tip-offs to Fleet Street gossips.

On another matter, I have not forgotten Letts’ recent brutal assault on our new PM on Sky News, insinuating that Brown was only visiting flood victims for PR reasons. This hardly accords with the unwell Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre’s view of the No 1 Broonite whose workaholism, water-sign sulkiness and rages are the staples of a worthy life.

For Coveney's excellent blog, click here.

Michael Coveney and his queer preoccupations

I must confess that former Mail theatre critic Michael Coveney is an excellent blogger - do catch his Whatsonstage site when you're quite exhausted with me, I won't be bitter. Unlike about 98% of journalists he intuitively understands that a blog requires both news of a sort and signs of actual visceral temperament: your average journo has learnt to arrange words in a stately way for his or her overbearing editor (often confused for the mass audience) but somehow leaves one thinking that he or she is talking over one's shoulder (as is invariably the case should you encounter them at parties).

Only in one respect does Coveney - who has failed to date to confirm or deny my earlier story about the Curious Case of his Missing Lloyd Webber Book Chapter - let himself down: he appears to have a problem with sexual aberration. Recently he accused AA Gill of walking and talking like a "homosexual male model" (when as I said most male models walk like John Wayne for runway purposes). Now, in his current posting, he describes the Evening Standard's art critic Brian Sewell as "epicene".

Now, the matter here is not that Sewell may not be epicene (a dowager with testicles, more accurately). My concern is that he feels the need to draw our attention to the non-issues of Sewell's gender (male, plainly), sexual orientation (homo, plainly) and - what I call - psychic impression (a dowager with testicles, I suggest). The contemporaneity of the walking talking homosexual male model and the epicene Sewell in Coveney's blog leads me to suspect that he perhaps is making the mistake of comparing both Gill and Sewell to his theatre PR wife Sue Hyman whose masculine severity is a thing of wonder; and this may account for her husband's preoccupation with those who fall short of their catalogue-assigned gender energies.

It seems odd to me that anyone with such a preoccupation would be drawn to the theatre, even if only as a critic. As my late friend Truman Capote was wont to say, most English male actors of any quality are gay - and many of the female are camp. Put another way, I can't imagine why a vegetarian might want to work in an abattoir. A person's inner drives and prejudices maybe discerned by their reflexive insults and humour: I fear Coveney is revealing a little too much of his inner life, or nightmares.

Otherwise I commend his blog and shall be be scrutinising it with even greater care from now on.

Michael Coveney: The missing Lloyd Webber chapter?

Private Eye appears to be entranced by the former Daily Mail theatre critic Michael Coveney – I never did quite understand why Dacre axed him – and with his lively whatsonstage blog.

He recently described AA Gill as “talking and walking like a homosexual male model” – in revenge for Gill’s manufactured rant against theatre critics (dead tree zombie controversy, yawn) – which regrettably betrayed Coveney’s ignorance of male models. All of them, straight or gay, walk like John Wayne as per their training, though one or two may mince off post-runway and have anal intercourse with sundry lovers. All sorts of things happen, I guess.

Now it appears Coveney is embroiled in another row after making rude comments about Blanche Marvin, 82, a veteran theatre-goer fag hag who’s a fave with gay critics – they are planning to unleash a terrible revenge on her attacker. Perhaps a whoopee cushion will be put to good use one night before the curtain rises.

All this reminds me of the late theatre critic and Noel Coward aficionado Sheridan Morley, who, like all his colleagues, was a shameless and accurate gossip. A little while before his premature death, I popped round to his lovely home in Chelsea Harbour – before he moved to Battersea – and he talked some about Coveney.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this," he said, promisingly, "but that book Coveney wrote about Andrew Lloyd Webber (The Andrew Lloyd Webber Story, standing currently at about 405,000 in the Amazon hit parade) – well, Andrew went ballistic when he read one chapter – he sort of had fact approval – which suggested that one of the reasons why Andrew and Tim Rice broke up was because of Andrew’s intense feelings for Rice which were not reciprocated. Andrew absolutely demanded the removal of the chapter or else he would withdraw all cooperation. So the chapter was removed. I really shouldn’t be telling you this.”

I have no idea whether Sherry was being mischievous - and I would not wish to put any construction on these "intense feelings" which strike me as indicative of a healthy emotional life - but I’ll ask Coveney whether it’s true or not.

Brian Sewell: A beautiful portrait

Thank God (or the gods) that Brian Sewell still has a place in British journalism - as art critic of the London Evening Standard. How editor Veronica Wadley must cringe as a Sewell sentence uncoils like a vast and fattened boa constrictor, minimally interrupted by the occasional comma or semi-colon. His paragraphs, too, are modelled in proportion on the huge chiselled stones of the pyramids; one wonders whether word slaves heave these great blocks into space, as sad little tart hacks elsewhere have to settle for sound-bite prose.

Recently I was privileged to discover the work of Paul Binnie, who I understand is a comfort of sorts to Mr Sewell - but that Madame Arcati could say the same! In particular I was drawn to Paul's portrait in oil of Sewell - a fabulous sight, entitled The Turkophile. You may have seen it already, but in case you haven't, here it is; purloined without permission, so I suppose Mr B will threaten to sue me along with everyone else. He should grant me an interview instead so that we may luxuriate in the aromatherapy of Sewell.

To enjoy Paul Binnie's brilliant art, do visit his site and make him rich(er) [Click here].

For the enlargement of your vocabulary, and other things, do visit the master himself [click here].

PS: Someone once described Sewell's voice thus: "He sounds like a dowager duchess carefully recalling a large turd she was once mistakenly served during tea at Claridge's. After a while, though, you stop noticing the peculiar enunciation; it is the words that fascinate ..."