THE SHEFFIELD PLAYGOERS' SOCIETY. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In her article on Sheffield which appeared in the Spectator on Saturday, April 26th, Mrs. Willianis-Ellis referred
to the Sheffield Playgoers' Society, saying With some difficulty I got news of a Playgoers' Society which for a-week„ a year performs such plays as The Admirable Crichton." Mrs. Williams-Ellis was in Sheffield for a few, flours and telephoned to make an appointment with me. We arranged to meet at 8 o'clock in. the afternoon. Before that time, however, another message came that she had to leave Sheffield by the 4 o'clock train and was unable to keep the appointment.
As she has given the wide publicity of your paper to very misleading information, will you allow me to give the following facts about the work of the Society for the current season ? We have produced Justice, by Galsworthy ; The Cradle Song, by Martinez Sierra (for the first time in England) ; King Lear's Wife, by Gordon Bottomley ; The Constant Lover, by St. John Hankin ; Cupid and the Styx, by J. Sack- ville Martin (these last three were revivals) ; A Pantomime Rehearsal, by Cecil Clay ; The Dover Road, by A. A. Milne ; The Admirable Crichton, by Sir James Barrie ; The Duke's Decision, by Mr. McLaren, which was the winning play in our last season's play competition.
In addition we have given public dramatic readings of Robert E. Lee, by John Drinkwater ; The Way of the World, by Congreve ; Anna Christie, by Eugene O'Neill ; Hassan, by James Elroy Flecker ; David Ballard, by Charles McEvoy ; Back to Methuselah, by G. B. Shaw ; Maloney Hotspur, by John Masefield ; What Every Woman Knows, by Sir James Barrie ; June, by Maurice Baring ; The Madras House, by Granville Barker ; The White-headed Boy, by Lennox Robin- son ; The Liars, by Henry Arthur Jones.
We have many other activities, but the above will show that Mrs. Williams-Ellis has allowed herself to make a state- ment which has, to say the least of it, little relation to the truth.—I am, Sir, &c., CONSTANCE RADFORD, Hon. Sec. (Sheffield Playgoers' Society).
404 Pitsmoor Road, Sheffield.
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