Will Waspe
I can think of no more fatuous excuse for public demonstration than that of the 'Save Piccadilly' Campaign, whose chairman, the American Ed Berman, announced last week that the organisation would be putting on a performance outside the Criterion Theatre every day at noon until the Minister for the Environment, Anthony Crosland, took the action he suggested when in Opposition and set up a planning inquiry commission on the proposed redevelopment of Piccadilly Circus.
No one of aesthetic sensitivity could look at Piccadilly Circus with an unprejudiced eye and pronounce it other than a national disgrace. Virtually any sort of redevelopment would be an improvement.
Nor, as I have remarked before, am I cast into gloom by the prospect of losing the Criterion Theatre in its present form — its warmest admirers would hardly claim it, sentiment apart, to be a showpiece among playhouses; and so long as there is a modernised theatre on the same site, there seems no reasonable cause for alarm. There are assurances that closure during rebuilding would be not longer than six months or so, and the Crown Estate Commissioners owners of the freehold — are pledged to renew, in any new lease, the covenant guaranteeing the future of the house as a 'legitimate' theatre.
Statement of intent
I am intrigued by the decision of Graham Greene's agents to announce last week that their man was writing a play based on the exploits of E. W. Hornung's craftsman hero, Raffles. Since the play is unlikely to be ready for production until the spring, this unusual announcement seems cunningly designed to discourage anyone else who may have the same idea — which, in view of the success of the' recent Sherlock Holmes play is not unlikely.
Customers' limit
The use of the phrase, 'Limited Season,' on West End playbills is aWell-known device to save the faces of those involved when a play flops after three or four weeks. It is only occasionally imposed contractually — as, for instance, when an essential member of the cast has a commitment elsewhere — but the truth is rarely admitted. My compliments, then, to Sammy Cahn, whose 'Songbook' show has been at the New London for a 'Limited Season'— "limited," said Sammy frankly, "to the period the audiences keep turning up." Sammy's audiences, sad to say, run out at the end of this week.
Irrelevant
I was not surprised to see a letter in the Times the other day commenting on the fact that one of the Booker Prize judges is the wife of one of the novelists on the judges' short list. I was not surprised, either, that the letter-writer did not think it worth mentioning that he is a close friend of a lady novelist who is not on the short list,
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