Knight time
Sir John Clements, I hear, is graciously allowing everybody at the Chichester Festi- val Theatre to call him 'Sir Fred' (a family nickname) to avoid confusion with Sir John Giclgud who has joined the company. You May he surprised to learn that the theatri- cal branch of show business is so much con- cerned with titles, considering the pains taken to convey a quite opposite impression to the public. But while 'Sirs' and 'Dames' are carefully omitted from billing material, cast lists etc,• the air backstage is thick with them, and most title-holders (Dames Margaret Rutherford apd Sybil, Thorndike, the latter being also Lady Casson, are honourable exceptions) insist on receiving proper deference and on correct forms of address by the underlings. Titles are valued above success and even money. What better indication is there of the store put upon them than the fact that our newest theatrical knight, Old Harrovian playwright Terence Rattigan (so rich that Tennessee Williams once said, 'He makes me look like a pau- per') has deserted his tax-haven home to re- turn to Britain to receive the accolade?
Theatricals with hereditary titles, oddly enough, are much less' fussy about their use. People at the National Theatre may address Olivier as 'Your Lordship,' but no one at Drury Lane is ever heard calling Peter Graves (who is in The Great Waltz there) by his title, Lord Graves. And Sir John Clements's own stepson, John Stand- ing. when he was at Chichester, never con- fused things by being called Sir John Leon, having inherited the baronetcy from his mother's first husband.
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