W i l l
Waspe
The London Evening Standara, which is reputed to care about the preservation of London's theatres, seems not to have got the message across to its 'Planning Reporter,' whose naive story last week on Mr Crosland's decision against a public inquiry on the Piccadilly redevelopment scheme was headlined "Crosland saves theatre in Piccadilly go-ahead." The morning papers, with the laudable exception of the Guardian, took their cue from that.
It therefore behoves Waspe to point out that Crosland has done nothing of the sort, that he has high-handedly approved the demolition of the Verity building above the Criterion together with substantial and vital parts of the theatre's interior accommodation and amenities, condemned it to indefinite closure while work proceeds on the building site surrounding it, and probably to the imposition of an iniquitous future rental as well. As far as the Criterion is concerned, the "assurances" the Minister has received from the commercial interests .nvolved are not worth the paper they are written on — if, indeed, they are in writing at all. The situation has not changed a jot since The Spectator spelt out the scandalous facts last November.
Snap
Another situation that has not changed since I last remarked upon it is that concerning the Cameron photograph album — despite a front-page Sunday Times story on the Works of Art reviewing committee's rejection of American buyer Sam Wagstaff s application for an export licence, provided the National Portrait Gallery can raise a whopping £52,000 to buy the album by May 2. Let me repeat my hope that public funds will not be called upon. The country will find Mr Wagstaff s dollars more useful than the ninety-four photographs which can be copied. This has nothing to do with art.
Fiasco?
Nor, I suspect, will Garden Party, a sort of street-theatre mish-mash planned for Covent Garden in the summer, I hear. Once the fruit, flowers and vegetables moved out it was expected that some sort of 'cultural' outfit would move in, and what the neighbourhood residents hoped for was something hightone and dignified. The 'happenings' of which I hear tell are far from that, even though Edward Lucie-Smith, no less, is the man in charge, and the Arts Council is coughing up (£40,000, it is said) to subsidise what looks like a pretentious fiasco.
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