Schedulers, journalists and artistic directors are hopelessly in thrall to birthday celebrations

Can we please all calm down about birthdays? For some reason this particular anniversary is now regarded as a sacred event to which all schedulers, journalists and artistic directors are in hapless thrall. Especially if it happens to end in a five or a zero. Birthday! Anniversary! Article, documentary, huge exhibition, please. Because Samuel Beckett was born on 13 April 100 years ago, the arts world is currently in the grip of a rather tedious assemblage of anything the man ever wrote. It would be fine if this was limited to one medium, but no, we are being subjected to endless Beckett all over the place. A Beckett season on Radio 3, six weeks of Beckett at the Barbican, Beckett's words projected on to London's City Hall, Beckett in New York, Paris, Dublin, and so on.

The gargantuan outpouring of Beckettiana is so overwhelming that the individual artistic merit of any of these productions, which should be the only justification for them, is rendered incidental. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, which one would consider a pretty likely candidate for guarding the liberal arts flame, has complained that we are "in danger of being Becketted out". Well, yes. Particularly as I seem to recall the same hoopla happened for his 90th birthday. Or was it his 80th? The man is dead, so there is not even a sentimental rationale behind the programming.

Anyway, the Queen is alive. And, what do you know? It's her birthday this year! Her 80th! So although we've just had a narcolepsy-inducing amount of publicity for the Golden Jubilee, which was all of two seconds ago, here we go again with HRH documentaries on all available terrestrial channels, topped off by a programme called Great British Menu, wherein chefs charge across the kingdom, whipped on by Jennie Bond, trying to find something suitably British to be served at a "spectacular dinner" to mark the Queen's big day. Meanwhile, it is also the 25th anniversary of the Brixton riots. Hoorah! Let's have a documentary about it (BBC2, The Battle for Brixton, 10 April). Or why not have a whole night, or a whole week, depending on how prolific the person/institution/riot in question is.

This week I went to perhaps the most irritating result of Birthday Knee-jerk Reaction so far, namely The Royal Hunt of the Sun at the National Theatre. Its writer, Peter Shaffer, is 80 this year. So, why not pop on his largest and possibly most inexplicable play? And why not devote not only the mighty Olivier Theatre but also a slot in the National's valuable Travelex £10 Season to it? I suspect that once Shaffer starts celebrating his birthdays à la Beckett, ie, in absentia, he will be lauded chiefly for Amadeus, by far his most popular and influential work. But Royal Hunt of the Sun? I suppose it might have worked back in the 1960s, before everyone had done the trip to Machu Picchu, as long as it had a spectacular cast. This production, however, has Alun Armstrong defeating the Incas with a broad Yorkshire accent and zero charisma. Frankly, I found Prisoners of the Sun by Hergé allowed a more interesting rendition of ancient South American civilisation. The Royal Hunt has some great stage effects. It has a great title. I'm sure Peter Shaffer is jolly chuffed that it is being put on for him. But do you know something? Birthday cake alone is not a very substantial meal.

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