What we need is a Jamie Oliver type to convince young people that the arts are cool

So charisma is not innate, but can be taught. According to the psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire, learning how to shake someone's hand engagingly (briefly touch their upper arm) or address a room memorably (lean forward, move around to indicate enthusiasm) is vital to pepping up your personality. One might imagine the arts world to be full of overly pepped-up personalities, but it seems that good communicators are thin on the ground. Or so Arts & Business has suggested. This organisation, which aims to convert the suits in the Square Mile and beyond into arts sponsors, mentors and patrons, is seeking to turn children on to the arts. I was invited to chair a dinner run by its offspring, Arts & Kids, to discuss how this might be done.

The name of Jamie Oliver was invoked throughout the meal. Having vocalised, in a single TV series, years of growing parental unease about the rubbish that passes for school dinners, as well as directly affecting government policy, the Naked Chef was cited as a textbook example of how to get children to accept what is good for them. If you can get children to swap Turkey Twizzlers for aubergine stew, then who's to say you can't get them to trade slobbing in front of the telly for playing musical instruments, going to see Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern, or hanging out at the British Museum?

The panel agreed that the most important thing was not necessarily money (although Tate's announcement that all exhibitions will be free to the under-18s helps), but a Jamie Oliver type who could communicate, via television, to young people that the arts are cool.

Who is out there already? There is a band of enthusiastic non-practitioners, ranging from Alan Yentob, host of Imagine on BBC1, to Neil Buchanan, frontman of Art Attack on Children's ITV. Both have charisma. Neither is going to inspire a nationwide march on the National Gallery. Then there are child-friendly celebrities who use their own formidable communication skills, honed in other fields, to shine light on to the arts. Rolf Harris, when not being a para-vet, is an obvious candidate, as is Tony Robinson. They are passionate, but are they experts? Obviously, there are the specialists: our own film critic, Mark Kermode, is on BBC2's Culture Show most weeks, and grandees such as Robert Hughes are eminently capable of "bringing people on" in terms of visual art. But could Hughes get them there in the first place? I'm not so sure.

Given that Oliver is himself a chef, how about having artists, film-makers, musicians, painters, rappers, and so on, to do the job? Geri Halliwell, anyone? Kenneth Branagh? The Chapman brothers? Oliver has the skill not only to encourage people to eat well, but also to teach them how to cook it themselves - but an artist encouraging people to pick up that bow, brush or pair of shoes is somehow less convincing. And yet the film (and musical) Billy Elliot has managed to turn many children on to dance.

Whose responsibility is it to find such a person, anyway? Should the onus be on parents to introduce their children to high culture? Is it the job of schools to give them musical instruments and trips to the V&A? Is it the job of broadcasters? Or, more crucially, the arts organisations? They must fear that future audiences for the arts will be hard to find.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website