THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S decision to ban a trans - lated version
of Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie is childish. If he were running any other institu- tion, I would be tempted to assume he was de- liberately trying to discredit it by exposing it to ridicule, with a view to giving the Government an excuse to propose its abolition. But I suppose the decision was logical, given the ridiculous rules which he applies in his decisions on what is allowed in the theatre. There comes a time when absurdity, if it is great enough, is almost impos- sible to remove. If the Lord Chamberlain were a politician, he and his office would have been abolished long ago : but the fact that he is not, means that nobody in Parliament has an interest in exposing his deficiencies in order to qualify for his job after the next change of Government. And, of course, there are also the theatre managers, who would not care if the cen- sorship were exercised by a committee consisting of Mr. John Gordon, Sir Theobald Mathew and the secretary of the Lord's Day Observance Society, so long as its imprimatur spared them any risk of prosecution.
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