3 MAY 1963, Page 15

4t41 WHAT A LOVELY WAR' SIR; I find it distasteful

that a historian of Mr. Terraine's standing should condemn a show he has not seen on the evidence of a dramatic critic who did hnot see part of it prperly. Wt Mr. Lin thought e saw is not eviodence. The figureev of 13,500 Leon for the first day of Passchendaele is in L eon Wolff's In Flanders Fields (a book praised and prefaced by General Fuller). So is the estimate of one hundred yards gained on that particular part of the front. Mr. Terraine's quoting of • the Official History's estimates of casualties for the whole Third Battle of Ypres is, therefore, irrelevant. But, as he knows quite well, these official figures have not gone unchallenged. LneY were critically analysed, for instance, in the l'4_ ovember, 1959, issue of the RUST Journal by Captain Liddell Hart. Theatre Workshop's interpretation of Haig will no more please Mr. Terraine than his recent defence of the man will please Miss Littlewood. All that I 'rned---not proudly, if you please—was that

Theatre Workshop's portrait, admittedly done with bold strokes, is recognisable to anyone who has waded through Mr. Blake's edition of the Diary. I need say no more. Condemning a show without seeing it is, as bad as denouncing a book before reading it. Mr. Terraine ought to know better.