Completing the celebrity hat trick

Today's post is brought to you by the letter K, for KEVIN SPACEY.

As you may have read in the papers, Kevin Spacey is the new Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at my college. He succeeds Patrick Stewart and a number of other prestigious actors in this role.

He gave his first lecture today, and he was amazing. He didn't have the same kind of presence as Sir Patrick, but he was funny and interesting. And the best part of it was, he took the "Professor" part of it to heart.

Throughout his talk he said a lot about how he wanted to meet the students and know what the students want, and I thought it he was just saying what he thought we wanted to hear. But he really meant it. During dinner, he got down from the high table (where the highest-level fellows and prestigious donors were invited to dine with him) to walk among the students, thank them for coming and to just chat with them. I was one of the lucky ones who got to chat with him, but sadly I did not document this momentous occasion on camera. (No one else was doing it, so I didn't want to start something if he just meant to walk around quickly!)

After dinner, Kevin and the fellows adjourned to the Senior Common Room for the usual post-high table gathering - probably port and whiskey and the like. But he didn't want that - he wanted to go to the JCR (student) bar. The fellows and the organizers (the Master's secretary, etc.) looked shocked, but they followed him along.

These things showed me that he takes this position seriously, and not as a pompous way to earn the college money from donors. It was great. I can't wait for his next lecture!