'OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR' SIR, —When, as he promises, Mr.
Bamber Gascoigne writes fully about Joan Littlewood's new musical on its West End transfer I trust that he will pay some attention to a feature of this brilliant produc- tion that has nauseated me and, I hope, others.
The whole extravaganza is based on a crude and inaccurate 'class conflict' interpretation of the First World War and, as can be seen from the pro- gramme notes, is undisguised propaganda. This is, I submit, pure exploitation, although for the sincerest motives, of the war dead. I found the show moving and effective but I would humbly, and without malice, ask those who produced it this question : is not the use of other people's suffering for political propaganda dangerously akin to the behaviour of Sassoon's `Blighters'—the 'prancing ranks of harlots . . drunk with din' . . who mocked 'the riddled corpses round Bapaume'?
A. COMERFORD
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