Over the years I have had a numerous conversations with people who object to making art - as in, serious, or non-pop genres of fine art, music, drama, literature etc* - more accessible. Although, in principle, I tend to agree with them - a great work does not have to dumbed-down to enable people to enjoy it. A great play or opera does not have to be performed in modern clothes in an inner-city ghetto with the main protagonists all being crackwhores.
But I do like gateways to culture. Television is an excellent example - as are film and radio. They give access to arts that, for whatever reason, people cannot see live - we don't generally think the broadcasting of sports have led them to be dumbed down.
Television can sometimes be true to its Reithian heritage to "inform, educate and entertain". I am too young to have experienced Kenneth Clark's Civilisation or AJP Taylor's seeming ex tempore deliveries to camera. My TV watching is somewhat desultory.
However, even I have not failed to notice the BBC's Big Read. It came up in conversation yesterday with my 8-year-old nephew. My mother believes he reads far too little. Still, we discussed the Big Read. He's going to vote for Harry Potter, because he hates Jacqueline Wilson. And he doesn't like Catch-22. I said it's not enough to vote; he's got to read all 100 Books. He wasn't sure about that. I said - oh not just this year, you've got all of next year as well. "Hmm, I'm definitely not going to read Catch-22." I nodded - like, I've read it, right?
Now, with or without the Big Read, it would be ridiculously precocious to expect an eight-year-old to read Catch 22. But, maybe, in ten or more years time, he will have a distant memory and will decide to read Catch 22, or any one of the other books featured.
* I acknowledge totally the argument that art does not have to be high-brow; one could say, culture - I wouldn't, because culture is, to me, as much as about customes, rites,
