It is New Year’s Eve, 2024. I’m in a long dress and heels, standing on a balcony above a gyrating Robbie Williams. It is 30 seconds to midnight. Everyone waits. Everyone looks at the Harbour Bridge for the countdown. We are in Sydney and I am at the Opera House with my husband. And then. The Sydney Harbour Bridge explodes into an arch of sequential light and noise and never-ending rockets and showers of dynamic sparkle and sparkling waterfalls of streaming colour showering on to the water. The black sky is illuminated by thousands of man-made stars. There is a communal gasp from the hundreds of us who are standing in what is possibly the most lauded public building of the 20th century, and one with staircases designed for women to walk up them in long frocks.
New Year’s Eve belongs to two places: Edinburgh and Sydney. This year, one was cancelled, but the other made up for it. Receiving the New Year from New Zealand and handing it on in fire and beauty is the job of Sydney Harbour. Twelve hours later, the baton is still going. I talk to my 93-year-old father, who is watching James Bond on TV and waiting for the sparkles to appear over Big Ben. It is a magical night.
Goodbye, BBC
My 2025 diary is empty. No committees, one-on-ones, visits to youth clubs, or conclaves at Broadcasting House. This is because I have resigned from my role as chair of BBC Children in Need. When I was in Australia, a distinguished TV producer asked if I thought the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ought to have its own Children in Need. “Be careful what you wish for,” I cautioned. For while Pudsey Bear is generously supported across the nation, recent events have revealed that unsupervised grants can sometimes achieve the opposite of a decent charitable ambition. Last May I discovered that BBC Children in Need was funding, and had funded for years, LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS). This is a charity whose former chief executive James Rennie was convicted for child sex assaults in 2009. Children in Need began its support for the organisation seven months later. When I raised the issue, Children in Need paused funding, before a permanent withdrawal three months later – but I had resolved to resign if funding was not swiftly stopped.
LGBTYS has also promoted puberty blockers, and caused controversy by operating in Scottish primary schools to advocate diversity and transgender issues.
As one door closes… I have been supported by the Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, journalists Janice Turner, Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore, and JK Rowling. The sisterhood is powerful, and a gathering force, one which was arguably started by “women of a certain age” and has been bolstered by Hilary Cass. Eventually, it will prevail against a shameful period of history in which children in need were actually harmed.
The stuff dreams are made of
When he was at primary school, my youngest son was in a production of The Tempest. So, last Friday he and I went to see it at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where Sigourney Weaver playing Prospero has had what are politely known as “variable” reviews. I bought the tickets two days before and there was huge availability. On the night, the theatre was packed. Proof that dynamic ticketing can sometimes work in one’s favour, especially with an unevenly reviewed show.
As for Weaver? She delivered the knockout “We are such stuff as dreams are made on” speech beautifully. Shivers down spine. The trouble is that Theatre Royal is such a barn. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s resolve to bring Shakespeare back to his theatre is admirable, but it is so large that the actors are miked. The result is that you often can’t tell who is talking, and if you are sitting far back, as we were, the visuals don’t help. At Theatre Royal, I would rather feel the beat of dancing feet. But I will keep an open mind – until my son and I experience Tom “Loki” Hiddleston as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing there next month. Yes, we love Marvel.
Bear necessities
But not as much as I love koalas. Furry, rounded, sleep for 20 hours a day. Utterly adorable. Whenever we saw one in Australia, we cooed for about 25 minutes. Apparently they are grumpy and have foul-smelling urine which they have no compunction in spraying over admirers. I don’t care. Indeed, so loveable are they that “Koala diplomacy” is a thing. At the G20 in Brisbane a decade ago, presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin were each given one to cuddle. Obama beaming – that’s a normal press shot. But Putin cracking up while holding a koala, that’s special. Let’s have more summits Down Under. Particularly if a koala relieves itself over the forthcoming leader of the free world.
The Arts Stack by Rosie Millard is on Substack
[See also: Did the Tories create modern Britain?]
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This article appears in the 08 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Great Power Gap