Will Waspe's Whispers
Despite the justifiable ire of Lord Olivier and his literary manager, Kenneth Tynan, over the National Theatre Board's back-alley plan — prematurely leaked to the Observer last Sunday week — to bring in Peter Hall to replace Olivier, neither of these injured parties can be wholly unfamiliar with the long knives that flash from time to time in the National's corridors. Their one-time press agent, Virginia Fairweather, would, I'm sure, be glad to refresh their failing memories about, for example, her own scurvily managed dismissal.
The fact remains, whatever bold faces may now be presented, that Olivier has been shabbily treated by the Board. He was almost the last to hear of last year's Board decision to leave the New Theatre (confirmed only after its disclosure in this column), .and, though finally consulted in the Hall affair, he did not know that the consultation was virtually a formality, the plan having been cosily discussed months previously by Arts Council chairman Lord Goodman and National Theatre chairman Sir Max Rayne, who enjoy a chummy social and business relationship.
There is something a little curious about the choice of Peter Hall as his successor in present circumstances — he is not a man who takes kindly either to budgets or to economy measures, and the National Theatre has already been obliged to go cap-in-hand to the Arts Council for supplementary aid. But there are enough theatre journalists who would very much like to have the Tynan job, to ensure a profusion of fawning articles assuring us that Hall was the only possible selection.
U and non-u
Thert is no denying the success of the campaign by Times Newspapers and the British Museum to impose their ` Tutank amun ' spelling on everyone else. Some newspapers even go so far as to alter advertisement copy for books whose title pages bear the more familiar ` Tutankhamen ' spelling. And the BBC has adopted the Tutankha-moon pronunciation that goes with it. So it is amusing, is it not, that the narrator in the short film showing every half-hour at the Museum is still using the 'old' pronunciation?
I am wondering, incidentally, how much :anger they are to delay the announcement that the Treasures exhibition will be extended beyond the official closing date — September 30. I'm sure you can count on its being retained at least until November 4, the actual date of the fiftieth anniversary of Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb.
Answers to corresmndents
' Puzzled ' (Budleigh Salterton): Peter Black is one of the television critics employed by the Daily Mail.
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