Kevin Spacey is dead right and saying what a lot of people in and out of the theatre must be thinking.

The BBC is giving many thousands of pounds of free publicity to the latest production of Oliver!, as it did to the recent revivals of The Sound of Music and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Is this really what we pay our licence fees for?

I agree that How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do respectively came up with the right winners in Connie Fisher and Lee Mead. Both went on to get deservedly good reviews from myself and my colleagues.

But more conventional auditions would have come up with the same results, and the television shows that brought them success made me cringe. The way Graham Norton, that tinpot Nero, teased and smirkingly tantalised the competitors before most of them were given the thumbs-down struck me as sadistic. I can't bear to watch the grisly process reactivated in readiness for Oliver! - and I imagine many people will feel the same.

And Spacey's suggestion that the BBC should be reinstating its once-famous Play for Today? Fat chance, given the corporation's dedication to dumbed-down reality shows like these.

And what does its spokeswoman mean when she says that "even though we are casting specific parts, other West End shows are always reflected in the series"? I don't recall anyone inviting me to bear in mind the merits of Blood Brothers or holding up a mirror to Dirty Dancing or Chicago. Those are just weasel words from a BBC that chooses not to know or care that it's in effect subsidising shows that ought to be making their own way.

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