I Was There «

I Was There

Wednesday 21st June 2023

They put up a barrier near the entrance so ordinary members of the public gathered behind it with what must have been the vaguest of red carpet expectations. Royston King was in A&E with minutes to spare. He’d slashed his finger with secateurs, perhaps identifying as a garden shrub.

But we got in with brilliance. It could have been a night-club – throbbing mu, the odd person as an installation, notably one whose head had been replaced by a ballon. But mostly the Great and the Good in the older spectrum. ‘You’ve already introduced me to the Head of the Historic Royal Palaces,’ I said to Royston, ‘and it was someone else.’ ‘No, that was the former Head.’ Or, ‘That was the Chair, not the Chief Executive.’

On a bench at the side was a ghost – Bianca Jagger. Some had come off the walls, such as Russell Tovey. The Mayor, ghastly of course, but in real life sparkling and beautifully turned out, it can’t be denied. Oh dear. Firm handshake followed by departure through a back exit. Two security guards. A Tax Advisor had fallen into despair. She showed us Lord Byron’s screen which he had cut out and glued himself with many pugilists. ‘What shall I do now?’ she wailed. The screen was somehow all her doing. But now there was no hope.

Joshua Baring was with a suite which, rolling on, gathered up Lawrence Dallaglio who stuck. They were thrilled with each other and it could have made a painting by Titian: ‘Mars Tamed by a Fawn with Art Talk’. Lawrence Dallaglio is much better looking now than in his Rugby heyday.

The refurb of the National Portrait Gallery though – the guests were as nothing, they paled beside the raging triumph. Tristram Hunt declared it a triumph. We started with the Tudors. As Royston said, the illusion is that nothing has changed; the same chronology, the history of Our Nation as always. But a slight jolt and the whole thing comes blazing to life. At the heart, as it were, is a room with two huge paintings – one an Abolitionist Meeting and the other the old House of Commons, voting through one of the Reform Acts, so the core of the life of our Nation, gathering democracy without revolution, free speech, the right to protest and the effectiveness thereof, under the Constitutional Monarchy, of course, the foundation of Our Freedom.

Beautifully judged. No Woke hectoring. An increased representation, new acquisitions showing those of different races and skin colour but accurate and measured.

We went down to the 20th century floor. Rounding a corner, there was Lilibet in the entrance, looking lonely by Annigoni. We hadn’t expected to see her. What a jolt. What magnificence. Without a thought, I curtseyed. The arrangement hurtles forward with ever greater brilliance. Essentially they are all mixed up, so thrilling juxtapostions, provoking thought – Dickens, Octavia Hill and Darwin together for instance. Later the King (another curtsey) with Marcus Rashford. On another wall, you get Beatrix Potter, James Joyce and Dame Anna Neagle.

Nothing could more powerfully convey the Monarchy in the fabric of national life and that life zinging with eccentrics, tormented souls, screaming queens, odd fey types (like Constable) and, darling, just so much talent and energy.

What a great nation, now and forever.

For the first time, one is aware of portraiture as an art. The crazy mixed up hanging means that suddenly there is a really famous picture leaping out, one that would stand on its own merit whoever it was of. Sometimes the idea seems to have been to put portraits of similar timbre together to reflect, for instance, on the high moral tone of the 19th century, where the colour range is shades of dun and black and the background is blank.

This National Portrait Gallery will give enormous pleasure for years to come and give us huge pride in Our Nation.