Larkin on stage — again …

… Dead poet's society | Stage | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As counsel for the defence, it's obviously incumbent to offer a few morsels of evidence, mostly anecdotal - that being the only sort I trust. On the subject of racism, for instance, I can now report that in the 1970s, I was on a selection panel with Larkin and a man from the Arts Council, given the task of selecting a poet-in-residence for a college in Hull. One of the applicants was black. After the interviews the man from the Arts Council said: "What did we think of our coloured cousin?" To which Larkin and I replied, in synch: "We give him the job." Which we did, to the splendid Archie Markham.