When it comes to children and culture we have odd notions. We like to give them a dose of Shakespeare here and a spoonful of Bach there as if we are dishing out cod liver oil. We have no faith that they will like it, but insist it will do them good. We are disappointed when they prefer Busted to Bach and find Bend It Like Beckham infinitely more accessible and full of meaning than Macbeth.
That is rather what it felt like at the annual Blue Peter Prom. There is nothing particularly wrong with the musical content or with the performance. But it comes wrapped in a script so patronising and with programme notes so silly - Offenbach's Can Can from Orpheus in the Underworld is treated like EastEnders or Casualty - that it seems as if none of the adults involved have any faith that a child would prefer to spend Saturday morning listening to Rossini and Holst to watching the Saturday Show.
This is patently untrue. There are many families who return year after year, and the level of knowledge among the young audience often surpasses that of the Blue Peter presenters. They treated Konnie Huq's joke that "conducting is just waving a stick about" with the contempt it deserved, and Simon Thomas's attempt to stagger through Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Great Escape with more generosity than it merited.
There was no doubting the audience's enthusiasm for Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations for clarinet and orchestra featuring Julian Bliss. There was full appreciation, too, for the dustbin lid and broomstick antics of Stomp, who demonstrated more about rhythm in a few moments than a 100 music lessons could convey. Stomp treated the young audience as equals. And that is what it should be about, raising expectations and levels of enjoyment, not dumbing down.
