Will Waspe
Only those who believe homosexuality to be a condition deserving unqualified censure can have thought my remarks last week about the late Sir Noel Coward an assault upon the memory of this gifted man. No such assault was intended. The piece, I felt, showed rather more respect than was accorded the deceased at that Jamaican burial by those responsible for the arrangements — perhaps "the small group of elegant white-clad men" (I quote the Daily Telegraph report) who came to the graveside wearing the gold-link bracelets of the playwright's favourites. The Bishop of Kingston assisted the local minister in the ceremony, consecrating
the chosen ground And conducting the formal Church of England service. Coward was, of course, an atheist.
Speedy recovery
This week at the National Theatre Denis Quilley has taken over the role of Macbeth formerly played by Anthony Hopkins who was said — with official murmurings of regret all round — to have withdrawn suffering from exhaustion.
It was a generous explanation. For what, do you imagine, has Hopkins been doing during these weeks while Quilley has been learning and being rehearsed in the part? He has, I hear, been playing the leading role in Q87, a sixhour film (being made at Pinewood for American television) based on the case of the doctor, alleged to have carried out inhuman operations while in a concentration camp, who sued the author of Exodus for libel.
Even between " takes " the resilient Hopkins has found it unnecessary to rest. Rather he has been entertaining the studio with what I am told are extremely good impersonations of his former colleagues at the National.
Previous page
