Sometimes, however, the mask slips and he displays an arrogance bordering on contempt. He has defended treating lesbians - "There is no evidence they would do damage to a child" - and argued on behalf of his HIV-infected patient that she would make an excellent mother.Television producers love his brooding looks, his deep, reassuring voice and his theatricality - for years he wanted to be an actor, not a doctor. When it emerged that he was giving fertility treatment to a woman with HIV he was quite prepared to override counter views and was disdainful of the critical public reaction. He is the moral arbiter of our times - ever ready with an opinion on the latest ethical conundrum and never shy about expressing it.Brilliant, mercurial but also intolerant and arrogant, he has a complex relationship with the media, alternately using and abusing it.Many times he has made the news himself, as now, by pushing out the ethical boundaries He has always gone his own way, against received opinion. As presenter of a new BBC television series The Human Body, to be shown in May, he this week defended the decision to allow the cameras to film the last moments of a man dying from inoperable cancer. In a typically robust piece in Wednesday's Times he dismissed critics who fear that the scene may distress the recently bereaved and expressed his "outrage" at "journalists who have tried to sensationalise the decision" to show it on prime-time television.As a candidate for God's earthly representative, Lord Winston has few equals.
Now the fertility pioneer Professor Robert Winston, ennobled by Tony Blair but deified by practically everyone else, has turned his attention to the other end of life. FOR A LORD of creation he looks uncommonly gloomy. The thick moustache and hang-dog expression convey infinite sadness. Odd, really, in one who has brought joy to hundreds of couples who have found themselves, in his hands, transformed into parents, writes Jeremy Laurance. He also confirmed the box-office figures, but added that a 64 per cent average "was something most West End theatres would be proud of and we are confident that the average figures for Twelfth Night and the Merchant of Venice will be healthier by the end of the season".The company's troubles were due to a standstill grant from the Arts Council, he said.. We are hoping that we can convince funding bodies to correct our funding position to enable us to re-instate this tour in 1999."The cancellation is a blow for RSC artistic director Adrian Noble, who passionately believes in taking the company around the country, claiming that is the remit of a national company.A spokesman for the RSC confirmed last night that the mid-scale tour was being cancelled.
An internal report, leaked to The Stage newspaper, adds: "It is no longer possible to balance our budget without reducing the scale of our work. Base operations in Stratford and London will have to be secured. Ways have been looked at to restructure the budgets - some will be frozen, some will be cut."The report continues: "Unfortunately, there will be no mid-scale tour in 1998, despite the huge success of Cyrano [a recently acclaimed production with Antony Sher]. A performance of Twelfth Night was only 10 per cent full and one of The Merchant Of Venice 23 per cent full.The company will cancel its mid-scale tour, which plays in 800 to 1,000- seat theatres across the country. Wormwood Scrubs has been without a governor since November.Yesterday morning the jail's acting governor, Michael Gordon, was faced with a protest meeting of 200 of the 700 staff outside the prison gate.The Prison Officers' Association said the claims, which were presenting a dossier by a firm of solicitors, were "absolutely shameful".Branch secretary Duncan Keys said: "As far as we can ascertain they are based on supposition, innuendo, myth, everything in fact except fact."There is no evidence, no medical evidence that would support any of their allegations.". A current deficit of pounds 1.6m is expected to increase to pounds 2m by April. Although the winter figures for Stratford are up by eight per cent on last year, to an average of 64 per cent, they are pounds 748,000 below a target set by the company two years ago. More alarming is that some performances are playing to very low houses.
