The fickle world of movers and shakers

What makes a "cultural mover and shaker"? This week a list of them was compiled for the first birthday of BBC3. It included the likes of J K Rowling, Sam Mendes, Stella McCartney, Keira Knightley. The list left me musing on how brief is the time at the top for a mover and shaker.

Who might have been in such a list 20 years ago? Inevitably, Mark Knopfler of the rock band Dire Straits would have been near or even at the top in 1984. His band sold records in their millions, and he was the man every arts journalist wanted to interview.

Now he neither moves nor shakes to any visible effect. The Booker Prize winner that year was Anita Brookner, whose moving and shaking days are also over. Ten years ago no such list could have left out the Gallagher brothers. But they no longer make these lists. The Booker winner in 1994 was James Kelman, whose moving and shaking was over in a flash.

Of course, that is no great surprise. Even cultural movers and shakers are hot for only so long. They get older, and new kids on the block come along to try to elbow them aside. Sorry, Stella, but that's the way it is. Ask Dad.

At least that's the way it is for the highly visible, celebrity movers and shakers who appear on these lists. But there are others. I'm thinking of the people who unquestionably affect the cultural scene, but are not usually to be seen at the arts parties, private views and first nights.

If I were to pick a few such people shaking up the cultural scene at the moment, I might choose the following.

First, with the Brit Awards next week, there is Lisa Anderson, the former record company chief who runs the Brits. She has turned it into an international success and can decide which artists receive global exposure next Tuesday.

I would also mention Raymond Gubbay, who, the week after, stages La Bohème at the Royal Albert Hall, where he has turned opera into an arena spectacle and brought in the coach parties. Soon he will start an opera company in London's West End. Then there is Michael Grandage, who is selling out the Donmar Warehouse theatre even more spectacularly than his predecessor and acknowledged shaker, Sam Mendes. Kelly Reilly, the stupendously sexy actress, whom Grandage made a star in the Donmar's production of After Miss Julie, is talked about by theatre-goers as much as Keira Knightley is talked about by film-goers. Film-goers just happen to talk more loudly.

The BBC3 list represents the most highly visible cultural figures. That is not always the same as the most influential or the most talented. Sadly, even on BBC3's birthday, it proved impossible to include the head of BBC3 itself in the list. He has neither moved nor shaken, nor made any waves at all.

A list that proves a kiss is not just a kiss

Another list this week contained the results of a poll for the best screen kisses ever. The top three were Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost, and Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. The kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr on the beach with the waves foaming around them in From Here to Eternity was only number 15. Clearly an oversight there.

Some significant kissing was missing. The kiss between Peter Finch and Murray Head in Sunday Bloody Sunday must be the most sociologically significant screen embrace, as it was the first gay kiss in a mainstream film, causing a stir when the film was released in 1971.

And what about the one between Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights? Prior to the kiss, Oberon had complained to Olivier that he had spat while saying his lines. "What's a little spit between actors, you little fool?" he is said to have snapped back. After that off-screen exchange, their kiss must have been worth watching indeed.

¿ Private views are an opportunity for galleries to get publicity when they show their latest exhibitions to opinion formers and potential corporate sponsors. Last Tuesday there were private viewings at: the National Gallery of the El Greco exhibition; Tate Britain of the Pre-Raphaelite Vision exhibition; and the Victoria & Albert Museum of Brilliant, its lighting exhibition. All on the same evening. I suppose the several hundred people invited to all three private views, could have gone on an "exhibition crawl" across London in a winding fleet of taxis. Alternatively, the "cultural movers and shakers" who run the three national institutions could get their act together, and compare diaries.