Unfair competition

Actress Patricia Hodge (66) can’t get starring roles any more and blames the Dames. She told the Cheltenham Literary Festival:

“It is very difficult for us who are in this age group to talk about it because it makes you sound like an embittered old woman,” she said.

“Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith are on a level where they will always get work because whatever is on offer will go to them first.”

Which reminds me: nearly 30 years ago I was accosted one evening in Victoria Street West, Auckland outside RKS gallery – it must have been a Tuesday for that is when the art galleries had their openings with free wine – by the writer Michael Morrissey. He was aggrieved that I had a column in the Listener and he didn’t. He felt this was unfair: people like me and Tom Scott who had columns in the Listener were blocking people like him who deserved to have columns in the Listener, and we should get out of the way. Good luck with telling Tom that, I thought.

Many years later, when I was a magazine editor, I realised that the two essential skills of the job are knowing when to reject a story or a writer, and spotting the real talent among possible replacements. As in real life, one has to know whom to court, when to say yes, and when to say no.