Third act
Sir: Ian McGarry, General Secretary of Equity, complains that my piece on his union was 'littered with inaccuracies'(`No militants like showbiz militants', 26 Novem- ber). It is true that I cannot be absolutely sure, for example, that the basic £123 fee paid to 'visually featured' actors in televi- sion commercials is correct, but one thing is undeniable: the figures came direct from Equity's press office. Since the BBC refused to discuss the fees paid to its actors it seemed reasonable to quote these figures as a guide to actors' fees in television work. I made this clear in the piece and at no point did I make the 'bizarre' claim that television licence fee-payers foot the bill for television commercials. Incidentally, a writ- ten reply from the BBC to the Daily Mail's `Answers to Correspondents' section recently revealed that in 1989 two young girls were each paid £120 to appear in the closing sequence of a situation comedy called Birds of a Feather, suggesting that the figure I quoted was not a bad guide at all.
As for the question as to whether the agreements between Equity and the BBC amount to a closed shop, don't take my word for it, take the word of the BBC's publicity officer, Cheryl Ann Wilson: she told me that a 'closed shop' was in operation. I did not put the words into her mouth.
Ross Clark
31 School Lane, Haslingfield, Cambridge
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