W i l l
Waspe
I hear that BBC-tv's five-year dicker for the television rights to the play, A Pin to See the Peepshow, may be reaching the dotted-line stage. Why the delay, you may wonder, in deciding to screen a play dramatised by H. M. Harwood and F. Tennyson Jesse from the latter's best-selling novel of 1934, based on the Thompson-Bywaters murder case, and originally presented and directed by Peter Cotes in London twenty years ago?
One reason was certainly that the play was banned from the public stage under the censorship rules of the Lord Chamberlain (it could be seen only in a club theatre), and although 'auntie" was not bound by the same rules, she was never eager to break them. Another, more understandable reason has been the difficulty in finding an actress of appropriate age who could match the legendary performance of Joan Miller in the Mrs Thompson role. Has the BBC now found such an actress? It will be interesting to see upon whom, among our present anaemic crop, their choice has fallen.
Uncivil liberty
Oxford's Bear Lane Gallery is covered in some confusion. The exhibition there, Chris Orr's John Ruskin, was to have been subtitled, History is a Dead Liberty '. By an unfortunate error, the gallery has been billing it as ' History of a Dead Libertine '.
Next week: Mae West
The hasty departure of Rita Hayworth, in mid-film, will not mean that London's colony of expatriate oldtime glamour girls will be diminished for long. Apart from Kim Novak, stepping into the Heyworth breach, I understand that Lana Turner's arrival is also imminent. Our arms — to say nothing of our stages and film studios — are ever open to these movie queens of a bygone day, and one way and another there can be few of them left in the fading mansions of Hollywood Boulevard.
Look and lean'
Just in case you Chink I'm lucky all the time, I have to say that I caught the LWT chat show, Russell Harty Plus last Saturday and, hereby offer gratis to its sponsors, an alternative, more appropriate title, Russell Harty Nonplussed. The thing is only a showbiz advertising magazine, but Harty's bosses should tear themselves away from Match of the Day sometime and watch him. Come
Simon Dee, all is forgiven.
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