30 JULY 1965, Page 11

`Armstrong's Last Goodnight' SIR,—For your dramatic critic to state that

the current, production of Armstrong's Last Goodnight at Chichester will never be bettered is surely to beg the question. The play was first performed at Glas- gow Citizens' Theatre. There. lain Cuthbertson towered in the part written for him; and Leonard Maguire suggested reserves of intellect and practi- cality far exceeding anything at Chichester. Not only theatre-goers but members of the"national press have suggested that the earlier production was in many . ways superior to that at Chichester. The recent BBC Third Programme production, too, had that very vitality and virility, that pattern of horror and ex- citement, so lacking on the unpeopled apron stage.

Is your critic fooling us? Or is it he himself who has been fooled? When I left Chichester after seeing' the performance, the main feeling in the air was one of embarrassment. And it had emanated from the stage itself.

180 Park Drive. Glasgow C2

DAVID CRANE