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Waspe

There has been some speculation in the trade (Wasoe's trade, that is as to how the National Theatre would diplomatically solve a teasing little matter of nomenclature in its publicity department, ever since Peter Hall brought over his own man, John Goodwin, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, while at the same time retaining the National's Olivier-appointed press agent, Craig Macdonald. The matter was clearly as delicate as those nobody-has-to-have-hurt-feelings negotiations which result in such film billings as "Starring A. Co-starring B. Also starring C." What has happened in this case is that Goodwin will henceforth be styled "Head of Publicity" while Macdonald is "Publicity Manager."

Anyway, the pair of them plainly face a tough problem in public relations which can't be solved simply by cosy and euphoric little riverboat trips such as Peter Hall undertook this week with the ladies and gentlemen of the press. Since Hall took the helm (of the theatre, not the boat) the National has plunged into such doldrums as it has not seen since the low-water mark of the Olivier regime when, for a run of five or six productions, nothing went right. The theatre has had three sub-standard shows in a row, although the second-rate Eden End might be called a pop success; the others were Hall's own weird and messy production of The Tempest, and John Hopkins's Next of Kin which is essentially the Royal Court's rather than the National's type of play. And the portents are harcny encouraging for the next entry, Wedekind's Spring Awakening which, in fact, has already been done at the Royal Court and is here newly translated by a Royal Court dramatist, Edward Bond.

Meanwhile

Oddly and disturbingly enough, an almost exactly comparable situation prevails at our other great theatrical recipient of taxpayers' money, the Royal Shakespeare —

although Goodwin's PR replacement, the ubiquitous Des Wilson, the professional fund-raiser and political loser, was never likely to take kindly to a humdrum description like 'publicity man.' Wilson has been grandiosely appointed Head of Public Affairs, and is welcomed as such by boss Trevor Nunn: "I am very excited to have someone of Des Wilson's social concern working with me . . . The RSC has to define its role . .. Des and I are both particularly concerned that vast numbers of people still do not see the theatre as relevant to them." (He didn't mention 'meaningful' or 'committed'; must be leaving them for Des.)

But I digress from the RSC's big headache: its flop festival. Last week's extravagant dud, The Bewitched, is already matching the thin houses of Section Nine and Duck Song at the Aldwych, and the three together suggest that the RSC's script-readers are no shrewder than their opposite numbers at the National. The RSC's London repertory has been held together since Christmas by the kiddie show, Sherlock Holmes, All of which suggests that the subsidy fans' argument that public money means superior theatre needs to be briskly re-thought.

Friend of the famous

Most critics, for their peace and independence of mind, tend to avoid personal contact and communication with the people they write about, but this is evidently not a matter that ever bothered veteran music critic Charles Reid (sometime of this paper), who has just donated a 125-pound shipment of letters, documents and memorabilia from and about the great figures of the music world to Boston University's Twentieth Century Archives. On the university's handout on the papers, incidentally, Reid fastidiously expunged the names of Oscar Hammerstein and Pearl Bailey, substituting the more dignified Thomas Beecham and Benjamin Britten.

Ethnic chic

When Stan Booth moved out of his flourishing, popular but never especially distinguished Ansdell Gallery in Monmouth Street, and the place became the Gallery Anthropos, Waspe was instantly dismayed by the catchline, "Specialists in Contemporary Ethnic Art," affected by the newcomer. Phrases like that, I find, tend to herald some of the direst primitive junk to find its way to the walls of our times.

The Anthropos may, of course, do better in time, but its current show, 'The Cultural Renaissance of the Canadian Indian,' accords with my darkest fears. Says the catalogue: "a period of political and cultural subjugation has been succeeded by an intense creative effort born of the contemporary generation's attempt to come to terms with the alien western society ... a spiritual and artistic renaissance difficult to parellel in our times." Which presumably justifies prices up to a chic 0,000 — guaranteeing some happy faces back on the reservations although, when Waspe looked in, there was no visible stampede of buyers.

Exit Kenny

Singer-jokester Kenny Lynch, whose recent press cuttings have not been taken primarily from the showbiz pages, will not, I gather, be teaming up again with Harry Fowler in Southern Television's children's show, Going a Bundle (the successor to last season's Get This). Fowler's new partner will be Spike Milligan.

Enter Keith

Waspe is agog to see the first of the year's Chichester productions, Tonight We Improvise, due to open this Wednesday after stormy rehearsal sessions which have been the talk of Sussex. Camaraderie has been hard to maintain in the teeth of the pugilistic attitudes adopted by some of the actors. Only the theatre's new director, Keith Michell, remains complacently calm, intent upon imposing his personality on the Festival. As well as playing a couple of leads (including, ambitiously, Oedipus), Michell is also planning to give a Sunday-night song recital and Waspe would not be unduly surprised if he staged a show of his paintings in the foyer.