Donald Sutherland appeared on Jonathan Ross’ show last Friday to promote his new series Dirty Sexy Money.
When Ross asked him his age and he admitted to being 72, the entire audience applauded!
Sutherland looked bemused and made a gag about it, but it did make me think why people feel the need to clap someone simply for being a certain age.
I know they were also doffing their proverbial caps to his continued career in acting, but it’s not exactly that much of a shock, is it?
I also found the recent tributes to Bruce Forsyth slightly baffling. OK, so he’s 80 and he’s still working, but is that really deserving of such a huge kerfuffle that the BBC made of it?
The entertainment profession is one of the few where age doesn’t seem to be a barrier, so carrying on past the age where you’d get your bus pass shouldn’t exactly herald a need to hang out the bunting, should it?
Being, as Neil Hannon once wrote, A Lady Of A Certain Age myself, I find the ageism thing rather bemusing. People are generally ‘younger’ than they ever used to be, so applauding The Sutherland – a man who will always be one of the coolest actors on the planet – for not being 21 is really weird.