Will
Waspe
A late-in-the-day performance by the Belgian ballet-showmaster Maurice Mart, might have have been seen at the London Music Digest's concert in London this week. He was invited to take the part of the mime soloist in Inori, a new work written by Stockhausen at the behest of a Japanese banking corporation. Instead a pupil of his, Elisabeth Clarke, took the role.
The reason, I'm told, is that Mart, perplexed by the prayer positions adopted by the soloist in portraying the religious elements of the work, journeyed to Iran to ask his guru's advice. This wise and holy man told him frankly that he should never perform in public again.
Doubtless an intensive search will now be instituted in exotic lands for gurus who might be prevailed upon to offer similarly persuasive advice to certain other well-loved ballet figures whose efforts are becoming increasingly embarrassing with advancing years.
Coterie
Waspe learns that Ian Hamilton, boring editor of the New Review, is likely to succeed the diminutive Aussie, Charles Osborne, as the head literary man at the Arts Council. Osborne, it will be remembered, was widely reputed to be the pseudonymous author of an article about his own activities in a recent issue of New Review, which is, of course, substantially supported by the Arts Council — an arrangement no doubt to be continued.
High circles That well-known West End actor, whose even more well-known wife has gone off abroad with a wellknown playwright, has been greatly disturbed by the tale now circulating around the town's salons that his own new love — a well-known lady of title — is also carrying on with a well-known Tory MP. The piquant trimming is that the latter affair was discovered by the Queen herself, who came upon them in flagrante delicto in the back of an estate car. Except that the pair are now off the royal guest list, I can find no evidence to support this outrageous story.
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