20 JANUARY 1950, Page 13

Copeau

For the talk of the last few days I should select (though I recognise that the choice is arbitrary) M. Michel St. Denis's contribution to the Contemporary Theatre series on the Third Programme. He was here paying a tribute—valedictory, alas !—to the French director, Jacques Copeau, who trained and inspired such great actor-directors as Jean-Louis Barrault and Louis Jouvet ; and, though the *inner was rather too rapid either for a French tongue or English ear, the matter was all that a lover of the theatre might wish—except that it was hard to discern any traces of Copeau in our own theatre in England. Mr. St. Denis was, perhaps, too modest to point out thtit he himself is one of the bridges between Copeau and the English