7 DECEMBER 1956, Page 7

I SEE THAT the Society of Authors has defended its

restrictions on the right to produce Pygmalion on the grounds that 'some form of traffic control is necessary if congestion and collisions are to be avoided.' If that is their defence, why were the organisers of the Pitlochry Festival stopped from producing the play on the grounds that the musical version of it, My Fair Lady, may be put on at some later date in the West End? One does not—as Mr. Graham Greene has pointed out—stop a cyclist going from Perth to Edinburgh on the grounds that he may collide with a car which will possibly be travelling later from the Strand to Drury Lane. I take it that the notion of any ban on Pygmalion has now been discreetly set aside.