Will Waspe
Inside the millionaire chat-show interlocutor, David Frost, that frustrated stand-up comedian is still yelping to get out. Never successful in his cabaret attempts in London, and less than the rage of Las Vegas, Frost seems implacable in his determination to meet the challenge of finding a live audience who will love him for himself alone.
Thus, while the City reverberates with rumours linking him with yet more takeover bids, what Frost himself is mostly thinking about between his TV stints is his plan to stump the provinces this summer as a variety turn.
Hard going
The board of the Chichester Festival Theatre would like it to be thought that Sir John Clements is stepping down from the director's seat after eight years (relinquishing it to actor Keith Michell) by his own wish. Their official statements are full of lavish compliments to him for what he has accomplished for the theatre — so lavish that the obvious inference to be drawn is that they are as sorry as I am to see him go. They cannot be too sorry, however. For Clements, I understand, by no means regards himself as a spent force, would have happily continued in the job and was not at all chuffed when his departure was suggested to him.
Hall in
The atmosphere at the National Theatre is hardly more cheerful, despite the united front placed on public view when it was announced that Peter Hall would take over the reins from Lord Olivier somewhat earlier than anticipated. Hall does not become even co-director until April 1, but his hands are itchy for those reins, and faces become glummer daily as one by one the projects planned by the outgoing men are shot down by the incoming Hall.
Well, I'll be .
Several theatre reviewers, commenting on the Australian play, Rooted, at the Hampstead Theatre Club, have noted how racily diverting is the Aussie slang in which it abounds (and of which a glossary is provided in the programme). Many have given colourful examples. But none, I see, has provided a translation of the slang verb that gives the play its title. Not the Observer, not even the Guardian. Not me, either, though I understand at last why Arnold Wesker's title, Roots, occasioned such hilarity among Australians.
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