Opinion

In June 1982 Wallace Slade was invited to contribute to a live late night arts review program, Scene It. In attendance were host Jonathan Dimbleby, feminist Margaret Linden, poet and playwright David Brayne, Conservative MP Richard Weekes and Wallace Slade.

The studio’s main overhead lights had been cut to leave a small puddle of yellow to highlight the panel sat in a circle upon a small raised platform. A single chair remained empty. The remaining guests shuffled uncomfortably and looked at each other with concerned frowns. The young assistant producer scurried over to Jonathan Dimbleby and mumbled something hurriedly into his ear. The host’s expression crashed.
“We will have to continue one guest short.” Dimbleby shrugged at the others. MP Richard Weekes sat on his hands and wriggled in his chair like a schoolboy; this was all jolly exciting.
“Ten, nine…”
“We can cut to the piece on Bennett early, cut back for the Giordano discussion…” Dimbleby continued to himself, flicking the pages of his clipboard on his knee.
“Six.”
“Shit.” He added.
“Okay, people, we’re going”
“Three and two…”
“Bugger.”
“And one.”
“Good evening. Tonight’s guests include…”
A tripod, out of shot, wobbled on its gangly legs. A sound engineer showed great presence of mind to steady it before it cut straight across the lens of camera one. Wallace Slade re-aligned his equilibrium and cursed.
“Sorry Mac,” he grinned. The engineer raised a finger to his lips.
“…award-winning playwright David Brayne and the feminist author and campaigner Margaret Linden.”
“Not that bitch,” Slade groaned, shaking his head and stepping his way between the curls of wires that filled the studio floor. They were vipers slithering by his ankles and he kicked at them with distain. The assistant producer wasn’t quick enough to block his path and the artist stepped up onto the staged platform and into the glare of the red-hot lights.
“Thank you Jonathan,” Margaret Linden said, “I very much agree, this is an enlightened age and I…” Her address was abruptly halted by Wallace Slade stepping up to her side, placing both hands to her cheeks and thrusting the full force of his mouth on to hers. She came out spluttering, her eyes wide and her hair suddenly free from its iron pinned incarceration.
“Mr Slade,” she squealed after a moment in which she struggled to regain her composure and her hair. Richard Weekes coughed away a smirk.
“Steady on,” David Brayne stammered.

In the control booth the director cut camera three to the show’s host and held it there whilst Dimbleby shuffled his notes to find the lead to the Alan Bennett biog and the live feed was cut from air.
“You’ve been drinking,” Margaret spat.
“Just the one, m’dear,” Wallace smiled. “For the nerves.” The director appeared by Slade’s side. He peered at the artist like a disapproving teacher and Slade had to fight the urge to hit him. Margaret Linden briefly stood up, made a poor attempt at threatening to leave, was placated by the assistant producer and sat back down. Richard Weekes caught the artist’s eye and winked. Minutes later and the live feed was reconnected and Dimbleby addressed the camera again.

JD: Controversial artist Wallace Slade has now joined us. Good evening.
WS: How do you do yourself Mr Dimbleby, Sir.
JD: Let’s turn to Michelangelo Giordano’s latest film opening this week, Di Una Donna.
(Cut to footage)
JD: David, as a storyteller yourself, what did you make of the build up of the relationship between the lead charcters?
DB: I found it refreshingly simplistic. I thought the interaction between the naive Isabella and her disillusioned father to be intriguing. Some might find the relationship uncomfortable viewing…
ML: Uncomfortable? This film does nothing less than promote promiscuity and incest.
DB: I think ‘promote’ is a bit strong Margaret. It explores very relevant issues. And the relationship between father and daughter is handled with sensitivity.
ML: Giordano’s made a slice of soft porn and labelled it art.
WS: Boring.
DB: How you can call it soft porn is beyond me. There is a very real chemistry between the characters that brews seductively throughout the film…
WS: Boring.
DB: And the ending hardly condones the father’s actions...
RW: I liked it.
ML: You would.
DB: He has his testicles removed after all.
RW: What do you mean by that?
ML: Well if the tabloids are to be believed…
RW: Excuse me?
WS: Yawn
RW: May I remind you there is still the law of slander in this country.
ML: Oh please. It’s you politician’s immoral double standards that form society’s values.
WS: Anyone got a drink?
RW: Oh, please, Miss Linden. What a typically ridiculous leftist notion.
JD: Maybe we should return to the subject of Di Una Donna.
WS: Maybe we should have a drink.
ML: Ms Linden. Do not patronise me. If the Conservative government…
WS: Oh shut up you boring cow.
(A moment of stunned silence)
JD: Now then Wallace.
ML: How dare you Mr Slade.
WS: You’d suck the enjoyment out of the soul of anybody. Don’t you bore yourself to sleep with your moral high ground?
RW: Here, here.
ML: I’ve never been so insulted...
WS: Oh, I doubt that.
(As Slade stands up he knocks the table and sends the glasses of water crashing to the floor.)
ML: You drunken fool.
WS: I may be a drunken fool – but tomorrow I’ll be sober and you’ll still be an insufferable dried up old, carpet-munching hag.
(Slade pushes Jonathan Dimbleby out of the way)
WS: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. And goodnight.
The artist suddenly steadied himself against the back of the host’s chair. The lights in the centre of the ceiling burned like flashes of magnesium. One moment there were twenty lights, the next thousands spinning round and round like a Catherine wheel. Slade placed his hands out before him looking for the support of a physical structure. The ground rose to meet him and whacked him hard in the centre of the face. He let out a disparaging groan like the release of air from a tyre. And the room went black.

You were in St Bartholomew’s for months?
WS: Three months. It was hell. Strapped to the bed like a mental patient.
Did you know what had happened to you?
WS: Not at the time, I didn’t have a clue. I thought I’d died. At first everyone in the studio just assumed I had fallen unconscious because of the drink. It was only after the buggers had poked and prodded me and taken half my blood that I discovered what was wrong.
Blood poisoning?
WS: Yes, lead in the blood, from the oil pigments I’d been using. I always thought my art would kill me, and it so nearly did!
(Laughter, interrupted by a rasping, violent cough ends the interview here. But I picked the subject up a few years later.)

The right wing started to champion you in the eighties…

WS: Yes, I hated that. It was all thanks to that bloody tv show. They thought I was anti-leftist. But of course, I’m anything but.
The press loved you then.
WS: I was the tabloid papers’ favourite drunken hell raiser. I was everything they wanted their artists to be.

So you think they portrayed you falsely?

WS: Well I was drunk most of the time! Celebrities become cartoons in the hands of the media. It’s handy for them to highlight the part of you that they think they can use to sell papers.

Conservative MP Richard Weekes described the incident colourfully in his autobiography ‘A Weekes in Politics’:
It was obvious the moment the artist Wallace Slade walked on set that he had borrowed liberally of the hospitality area. I must confess, contrary to popular thought, that I always found him an amiable fellow. I thought it hilarious when we stumbled on stage and the first thing he did was give that liberal do-gooder Margaret Linden a smacker right on the chops. She was spitting feathers after that. It was a jolly good ruse I thought. Then of course the fellow gets more and more bawdy throughout the show until he finally upends on the floor. One shouldn’t really laugh, but it was terrifically good fun seeing Ms Linden, who was in those days a leading advocate of non-violence and a staunch critic of the Falklands War, kicking ten kinds of horse manure out of the poor chap as he lay spread-eagled on the studio floor.

Is it true Margaret Linden actually visited you in hospital?

WS: Yes, that was hilarious. It was just a PR stunt on her behalf, of course. But I like to think she felt a little guilty for kicking me whilst I was on the ground and calling me a bastard! I heard that that was the most repeated clip on British television. Hilarious.

What did she say to you?

WS: In hospital? Oh, I don’t know, the usual pleasantries. Actually she gave me a copy of ‘The Female Eunuch’. I used it to mop up my pee.