Will Waspe
Andrzej Wajda, the director of The Possessed (last week's Polish contribution to the World Theatre Season) doubtless has many admirable qualities. Modesty is evidently not one of them. Complimented at the Polish Embassy reception by a lady compatriot who admired both The Possessed and his recent film The Wedding, Wajda was quick to agree with her. He was notably aggrieved by the fact that The Wedding was playing only in Ealing, rather than in the West End where he felt it should rightly be.
Third time unlucky
Can it be the thought of that spoilsport rule, "Three strikes and you're out," that accounts for the extra tension and tightness we all noticed about Esther Rantzen in her new BBC show, That's Life? If Waspe were Esther, he'd look worried, too. The programme is a third-rate, paralytically unfunny spin-off from the old Braden show, for which someone ought to be shot. The basically likeable Esther can do nothing with it.
All his own work
There are some Sunday-morning artist-salesmen who desert the Bayswater Road railings in the summer months to go down to Spain and flog their wares to the British tourists (quickly sketched oils of local scenes sell as fast as they can paint them). This is a two-way traffic, but not to Bayswater Road. The American artist, Gino Hollander, who lives and works in Spain, sends his pictures to London where he has opened his own gallery in high-rent Mount Street, Mayfair. Gino has another gallery in New York (looked after by his son), and two in Spain, and keeps them all well stocked with his own work. I sus pect his catalogue note is also his own work: " Hollander paints as he believes and lives, striving to create a deeper sense of commitment through expression of the human condition."
Sweet Sherry
Sheltering behind the coyly disarming admission of being possibly biased, Sheridan Morley, film reviewing for the Times, managed to give his old dad a handsome plug: " For me . . . the highlight of the film is a suave and indescribably brilliant performance by that great stage and screen actor Robert Morley." Indescribably? Oh, go on, try.
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