Will Waspe's Whispers
Things are going quite nicely, I'm told, for that sprightly entrepreneur, David Missen, in his effort to collect an 'investment fund' of £50,000 for the purpose of backing West End theatre productions. I don't know how good he is at picking stage winners, but he has already displayed a sweet talent for pressagentry and has got his scheme some lovely free publicity — which included a glowing interview in the Guardian a few weeks back, from which you might easily have gleaned the impression that the idea of play-backing syndicates was quite new.
It isn't, of course. There are at least two quite flourishing ones operating — and coming up with enough successes to keep afloat in a game in which the general odds are about eight-to-one against the investor making any profit, and about six-to-four on his losing his whole stake. These may seem discouraging odds, but the winners, when they happen, can pay off up to 3,000 per cent or better.
I wish David Missen's " Presentangels " outfit better luck than a similar venture called "Little Angels" which producer Charles Ross started last spring. Ross collected about £6,500 from 200 small investors — and lost the lot in two successive flops.
Candle-ends
I am even less kindly disposed towards The Befrienders, the BBC-TV series based on the work of the Samaritans, than I was before it actually reached our screens. The idea of the series was bad enough (this column, February 12); the thing itself is far worse and was aptly described by Robert Robinson in the Times the other day as "an example of true compassion melted down as though it were candle-ends — a piece of debauchery for which those responsible should be whipped at a cart's tail."
The series has brought the Samaritans a switchboard-swamping deluge of calls — in part encouraged by their dovetailing advertising campaign — but, as I suspected, a low proportion of them come from people in genuine extremities of distress. I hear, indeed, that a remarkable number are from hoaxers whose " troubles " offer only minor variations from the stories told in the fictional episodes shown each week. Another side-effect has been a rush of people volunteering as Samaritans, no doubt because the fictional examples portrayed make it appear that the desired standard is ludicrously low, and few of the aspirants will eventually prove acceptable.
Gay times coming
Every time I ponder the imminent revival of The Maid of the Mountains (at the Palace, this Saturday) my heart goes out to the actor who is going to have to walk out on that stage, in this dissolute day and age, and sing "A bachelor gay am I . . . "
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