Art for art's sake

The Guardian has deployed top BBC expert Charlotte Higgins on the tv version of Front Row, launched largely imperceptibly on Saturday evening, when right-thinking licence-payers were drinking solely at the Strictly fountain.

"BBC2’s Front Row, judged on its first episode, feels like evidence of a massive failure of nerve, a shying-away from difficulty and risk, a pulped-down, food-processed version of the arts that lacked even the brisk, businesslike pleasures of its radio equivalent. Perhaps it will improve. Heaven knows that many a brilliant television show has had shaky early episodes. But not for the first time, I am forced to wonder: what is it about the arts that BBC TV fears so much?"

Clearly someone high up in BBC Arts approved the choice of Giles Coren as launch presenter, be it Yentob, Claypole or Purnell. The BBC seems determined to prove that Coren must be good at SOMETHING, but frankly, this ain't it, despite surrounding our 48-year-old hunk with upright fluorescent tubes and some soft focus. His agent, Vivienne Clore, also has on her books Susan Calman, who apparently can't stop being employed by Auntie in 2017. Is there something we should be told ?