Arnold Haskell in Australia: Did Connoisseurship or Politics Determine his Rôle?

On the surface, Haskell's position was that of a kind of roving reporter cum publicist for the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet, the so-called 'second company' of Colonel Wassily de Basil. The company was, when Haskell spoke of his 'four days notice', about to embark on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, a tour that spanned a period of nine months from October 1936 to July 1937.1 While on tour with the company, he wrote articles and reviews for Australian newspapers and journals, recorded radio interviews, and sent reports home to England for magazines such as the Dancing Times. Because of these activities, he is often credited with popularising ballet in Australia and with opening the way for the establishment of a national company.' Many of his articles promoted the qualities that he felt characterised the Ballets Russes and were not so much reviews as articles with a didactic purpose. Writing, for example, in February 1937 in the socially influential monthly magazine The Home, Haskell discussed the significance of the de Basil Ballets Russes companies as ensembles of dancers of great individuality rather than companies with 'one blazing star and a background of mechanical dancers'. In