It seems that there will be no “reaching out” experiments at the BBC Proms this year. The organisers have decided not to go down the path that led to orchestral mood music via Dr Who, Strictly Come Dancing, Sherlock and CBeebies. Although such events were supposed to be kind of gateway Proms, with the intention of luring the casual punter into getting hooked on the harder classical stuff, there has been no evidence of this happening, and so they’ve been dumped. Boo!
There’s still plenty going on for the “promcurious”, including a Scott Walker-themed event, a mini-prom in Hull, this year’s city of culture, and the works of John Williams, the film composer responsible for themes for everything from Star Wars and Jaws, to Indiana Jones and Harry Potter. So, there will be pop culture, but a slightly higher brow of pop culture. There will be no slumming it among the sequins and vats of fake tan that come associated with Strictly; no vision of a giant, foam, pink Clanger, looking as though its backside is going to flatten the string section at any moment. No gratuitous tackiness at all.
It seems a shame for the Proms to lose this element of coach trip playfulness, especially as many people still find classical music intimidating. The bizarre tie-ins offered something different, not just in terms of performance but also in diverse audiences. While the populist Proms may not have proved to be a classical music conduit, they at least ensured that, for a moment here and there, the Proms pushed out that image (garnered solely and unfairly from the last night) of drunk posh students, resplendent in Tim Brooke-Taylor Goodies-era union jack waistcoats, flaunting their particular brand of patriotism.
