The Xtra Diary - Freedom of Information v Terrorist threat? British Museum won't answer a simple question + All set for the Bloomsbury Festival

Published: 15 October, 2010

If in doubt, use the security argument.

Sometimes it seems the best way of closing down a conversation with an inquisitive hack or member of the public making a request under the Freedom of Information Act is to say that anything you say may be used by terrorists.

It is an argument that those who use the Act are increasingly encountering – as this newspaper found when it asked Westminster City Council to give a breakdown of funding for street works in Whitehall recently.

It turned out that the argument made some sense in this case (the scheme involved protecting government buildings from bomb attacks).

But was the British Museum really being serious, when it claimed in response to a West End Extra request for information about staff numbers, that “disclosure of the information would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime”?

Our reporter had merely asked how many staff were on the payroll in a particular department last year, the year before and the year before that.

The request was made after a British Museum insider contacted us to say that there were mounting concerns among staff that security was being compromised because of cuts. 

Ironically, security was the reason the museum gave for preventing us from checking out whether there was any basis for such fears.

Harley Street quackers!

THE latest points of focus on central London’s history trail are not buildings or statues but microbes, spurious treatments and long-dead men of the stethoscope. 

Next weekend two free walking tours sponsored by the Euston Road-based Wellcome Collection will take place as part of the three-day Bloomsbury Festival.

They will be led by Richard Barnett, a respected medical historian and the author of City of Diseases, City of Cures and Medical London, and will take in parts of Westminster including Harley Street.

“The secret to a good tour is to reveal the story behind the buildings,” Dr Barnett told Diary, “to bring the dead out from their graves.”

But while it always had a fav­ourable reputation among the well-to-do, Harley Street was not necessarily the best place to go if you were unwell. 

Dr Barnett tells the story of John St John Long, an Irishman who became known as the “Quack Doctor of Harley Street” in the 1800s because he treated consumption with a potion made of egg yolk, vinegar and turpentine.

“It was like a mix of cement and paint stripper,” says Dr Barnett.

“He would smear it on the patient or have them breathe in the fumes.”

Three of Long’s patients died and he was found guilty of man­slaughter and fined £250 – a large sum of money in those days – and allowed to carry on practising.

• Dead Famous, a guided walk by Richard Barnett, takes place on Saturday, October 23 from 11am-1pm.

A second walk, In Sickness and in Health, will take place on Sunday October 24 from 11am-1pm.

Walks start and finish at the Wellcome Collection, NW1. 

Tickets will be available to festival-goers on the day. Sign up early at the information stalls in Russell Square to avoid disappointment. More details on 020 7130 350. 

Pop-up theatre in empty office

WHAT to do with all those credit-crunched vacant West End business premises? Stage plays set in offices in them!

That is what director Chris Adams is attempting to do in Theatre Delicatessen – a “pop-up” space in an empty office block next to Selfridges (just off Oxford Street) that has been praised to the rafters by critics.

A member of renegade theatre company Fly Theatre, Chris will be directing acclaimed playwright Mike Bartlett’s 2008 comedy Contractions – about the delicate line between our working and private lives – at the venue later this month.

“It adds an extra ­element of excitement when both the audience and the actors don’t quite know how to approach the performance,” he told Diary.

“There are just two performers and there will be around 40 ­theatre-goers sitting wherever they like in a conference room on the second floor. The play is set in an office, so we are very lucky to have this space.”

The production will be similar to the kind of site-specific shows that Soho-based ­company Punchdrunk has become synonymous with.

Judging by Bartlett’s most recent play, Earthquakes in London – which was at the National Theatre last month – it should be a colourful night out.

Diary’s man in the stalls said of that show: “At times exhausting, sometimes clichéd, but up there with Torvill and Dean for artistic impression.”

• Contractions is at Theatre Delicatessen, 3-4 Picton Place, W1 from October 26-30. 1pm matinee on ­October 27. Tickets at www.contractionsplc.co.uk

St Anne’s Church, the movie?

THE West End Extra’s postbag, if not exactly overflowing, has certainly been fuller than usual following last week’s front page story about conservation group the Soho Society being told it may have to quit its base in St Anne’s Church.

Most of the letters have been anonymous and so far the ratio of those in support of church rector David Gilmore and those in support of the aggrieved members of the Soho Society has been about 50/50.

There has also been comment about the episode online. Soho-based Tory blogger Barendina Smedley wrote: “It’s not hard to imagine the quirky little independent film – almost too full of character roles, perhaps racking up a critical prize or two on its journey to modest box office success – that could be developed out of the West End Extra’s headline this morning.”

Anyone with casting suggestions is welcome to get in touch...