The Londoner: Robert Harris: My loyalty won’t allow me to condemn Polanski

In today’s Londoner: Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting talks about the trouble she had recording her memoir / Stars of The Crown stepped onto the red carpet / Ai Weiwei is frustrated that the ‘cultural establishment is terrified by Covid’  
Robert Harris
Robert Harris
GETTY
13 November 2020

Author Robert Harris says he refuses “to join in with some chorus of public denunciation” over disgraced film director Roman Polanski because “I feel a debt of loyalty to people I’ve worked with”.  

“I would feel ill at ease if I was to suddenly turn around and say ‘oh I regret ever having worked with [him],’” he added.

Hollywood stars have turned their backs on Polanski since 2017 when interest in a 1978 case involving the director was reignited. Swiss police announced they were investigating allegations against him by a woman who claimed he assaulted her in 1972 when she was 15. In 1978, Polanski fled the US just before he was due to be sentenced over the sexual assault of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey. He had pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.  

Harris explains on the Meet The Writers podcast that when he met Polanski “nobody... said ‘oh you shouldn’t work with him’ because of this case that had happened in the late Seventies.

"I simply found myself having got to know someone who had been very respectable and now suddenly was on the way to becoming a pariah. It’s left me caught in this strange place." 

Harris said “it may not be until Roman is dead that it will be legitimate for his work to be shown”.

When the Londoner called to ask Harris further questions, he said: “I’ll leave it at that.”

‘I sucked ice to finish recording audiobook’ 

Graham Norton Show - London
PA

Lady Glenconner sucked ice cubes and glugged a stiff “cordial” while recording the audiobook of her memoir about being Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting. “Rupert Everett, who’s a friend of mine, said ‘Anne you will never read it,’” and even though her tongue swelled up, the 88-year-old was undaunted. She told a Fane event she could “hardly get off the chair” when given what a friend told her was cordial, but she did finish the book.

Rolling out the red carpet… it’s the Crown stars working from home 

The Crown Season Four Premiere
Gillian Anderson and her partner Peter Morgan
PA

Stars of The Crown stepped onto the red carpet last night for the premiere of season four — all from the comfort of their own homes. Gillian Anderson, who plays Margaret Thatcher, cut a glamorous figure in Dior while posing in her kitchen with screenwriter partner Peter Morgan. Helena Bonham Carter sashayed in a silver crown and Emma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana, said receiving the carpet in the post was “one of the funniest deliveries I’ve ever had”. Now that’s home working.

Ai Weiwei: Art is a gift for public right now 

Artist Ai Weiwei
Artist Ai Weiwei
PA

Ai Weiwei is frustrated that the “cultural establishment is terrified by Covid” and so have stopped work. The artist told a How To Academy event last night that his takeover of Piccadilly Circus’s big screen was an example of art being “a gift for the public during this time”. More public art? We wouldn’t complain.

SW1A

Dr Peter Gammons, UKIP’s London mayoral candidate, tells us he is unfazed by the connotations of his surname. “Gammon” is slang for puce-faced, middle-aged Brits. Gammons says he is not angry, and happy to be called middle-aged. He adds “gammon actually means ‘proud to be British’” – a claim attributed to Dickens. “I am proud to be both gammon and Gammons”.Choose your own nominative determinism.

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Another day, another hijacking. This time the victims are Islington North Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn’s local association, as their Facebook page appears to have gone rogue and they can’t get it back. It posted a link to an article headlined “The killing of Jeremy Corbyn” and said (in all capitals) “this is the truth that Keir Starmer doesn’t want you to read and share”. Where are the SBS when you need them?

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