No. 526: The winners

Trevor Grove reports: Armed with a mere ten words chosen from the opening lines of a well- known play, competitors were asked to con- struct round them part of the script for a play, film, pantomime, musical or any other suitably theatrical occasion. The source of the words, identified by an encouragingly large propor- tion of those who entered, was T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party: Wyndham-s, one might hazard, is doing good business—and so is Richard Hallam Brown, who wins a guinea for the first correct entry opened. Otherwise entries were somewhat disappointing, but not, it should be emphasised, for want of originality; the said Hallam Brown for instance showed consider- able enterprise in relating the manner of Augusta's becoming Lady Bracknell: AUGUSTA Then that is settled. For the future you may dispense with your abdoininal sup- port and cease rinsing your hair with that black concoction. Your attempts to mimic the Lithuanian Military Attaché were both unsuccessful and unnecessary. Had I pre- ferred his looks and vitality to your title and docility I would have informed him of the fact. His proposal of marriage should come as a surprise to a young man, the precise nature of which is immaterial.

There was, in addition, a pantomime song (from Christopher Clarke), a torrid scene from A Passage from India by Hilary Temple; also from India a demotic panto by Paul Vousden and no less than three passing fair attempts at Noel Coward.

But prizes this week go to James Fenton (three guineas) for an extract from what he informs me is a rare play written by W. H. Auden—part of an invocation to the New Age, spoken by a chorus in dinner jacket:

Rain on us shafts our invert love has missed, Banish the tigers of scorn, the Gordian test, The Maharajah at the hopeless border Wrangling in the customs sheds of murder, Wedding the liar's curse, the waterfall rinsing The sickly mimic smile of Sherpa Tensing, Pause in the café where the Lithuanian

Sniffs at a cool, leguminous geranium.

Oh whet the blade of belief, the new vitality! Flow through the culverts of the beleaguered

city.

Three guineas also 10 Peter Peterson, less for a convincing piece of Chekhov than for a happy dig at some of his English translators:

TROF1MOV (bitterly): Yes, Leonid Andreyevitch, I've missed everything—I, who dreamt of shooting tigers with a Maharajah! It's all so hopeless. (Takes another glass of vodka.) GAEV (mumbling in his sleep): Double baulk! (The door opens, and sounds of wrangling penetrate from the kitchen.) VARYA (outside): Oh! This wedding! I knew we hadn't enough glasses.

ruts (outside): Never mind, little mother; they're rinsing some.

(Enter Varya. She goes over to Trofimov, who presses her hand to his cheek.)

VARYA : You're a noble soul, Petya.

TROF1MOV : You mean I mimic nobility. The truth is that I'm as ignoble as that vulgar Lithuanian you've just married. Varya, Varya, what could you have seen in him?

VARYA (passionately): Vitality, Pyotr Sergeie- vitch, Life!

TROFIMOV (with a grimace): Life! (Shoots him- self. Varya faints.) GAEV (waking up momentarily): Potted! (Snores.)

Finally, honourable mentions to D. Allan- Nicholls's John Arden and to Charles Lyall.