BATS AND BELLES SIR,—Glad though I am to have stirred
Mr. Geoffrey Reeves into blazing off at my article on the Youth Theatre in so fine a style, I must point out that he has not brought down more than a couple of clay pigeons.
As he points out, I confused two of the company's productions : Henry V never went to Manchester— the play was Henry IV, Part 11, and it was this produc- tion that was featured in the Sunday Times in April last year before it opened at Toynbee Hall. For this linked inaccuracy I offer Mr. Reeves my apologies. But I do not expect they will satisfy him, for they ignore his main, and starkly fundamentalist, com- plaint that when 1 went along to the Youth Theatre's sessions 1 was 'merely looking for a story.' Now I would have thought that publicity—even from a cad like myself—would have been more to the point than courtesies and congratulation privately ex- pressed. Mr. Reeves, even though the company's activities have been simmering in these columns for a fortnight, does not agree.
The article was designed to make two points: that the Youth Theatre's productions are extremely good;. and that there is a marked cleavage between its emphatically non-professional policy and its cur- rent practice. Unlike the National Youth Orchestra, it draws its most experienced members from a single school; it is this talented group from Alleyn's who, as well as giving extraordinary quality, to Youth Theatre productions, have decided to embrace the stage more ardently than Michael Croft—to judge by his public statements—ever intended. What we do not know is whether this group—to whose defence Mr. Reeves so chivalrously sprang—epitomise the effect of the Youth Theatre on youth, or whether they are a collection of natural pros on whom Mr. Croft, as director, had the good luck to stumble. Until the influx of new members show their qualities in the forthcoming production of Troilus and' Cressida there is no means of clearing up this question. I certainly suggested no answer to it, and confined myself to pointing out the sharp division at present separating the new recruits from the old gang.
However, its pontifications apart, I enjoyed Mr. Reeves's letter; and I must thank him for having so weightily confirmed the impression I tried to give of his irrepressible and unnerving fluency.—Yours faith- fully,
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