Will Waspe
Hands up if you know that a Festival of British Theatre got under way on Monday, I may be wrong, but it looks like the nonevent of the decade. There are nice brochures out on the subject, listing dozens of attractions at theatres from Scotland to Cornwall, but when you move up close to those attractions, well, frankly, they look indistinguishable from what would have been there. anyway. Actress Judi Dench and her fellow organisers will have to think again if they seek to make this an annual occasion. Festivals, to look like festivals, need to be. concentrated, not dispersed.
Down in the world
I haven't been in the Palladium in years (it's not a place to which The Spectator gets invited), but I went along there last week to see what changes the years had wrought. Very few in the house itself, but the things going on up there on the stage would bring a chill to the heart of anyone who recalls the time when the Palladium could justifiably call itself "The World's Greatest Variety Theatre." The Cilia Black Show is a tarted-up end-of-thepier entertainment which the reasonably sunny personality of its star can hardly be expected to save in the teeth of performers like Johnny Hackett, the featured comedian, whose 'jokes' would be scorned by the smuttiest schoolboy you know over the age of twelve.
One in, one out
Yet another old musical is headed for the West End. I hear that The King 00(1 1 — one from the Rodgers and Hammerstein heyday — has been doing so well on tour that the promoters have been encouraged to bring it in to town. It may not increase the number of revivals in London, though, for the rumour is that it will replace Show Boot at the, Adelphi.
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