Will Waspe
The arrival of a lunch-time play, The Filth Hunt at Soho's Almost Free Theatre seems not to have been remarked in the prints. And this is strange, for it is by David Rudkin, whose last play, Af ore Night Come, got him hailed as an abundantly promising dramatist by the trendier critics. Am I right in thinking that his old supporters are embarrassedly re-examining their previous opinions.
That would not be surprising, for this new piece — bearing all the earmarks of having been ten minutes rather than ten years in the writing — is a slapdash, witless ' satire ' on the Longford Report that weirdly manages to equate anti-permissiveness with the aristocracy, the ' establishment' and capitalism. The amusing aspect of this latter conclusion is that the play is being performed in an area seething with the profitability of porn.
Hammer and mails
It used to be said of London's two most renowned auction houses that Sotheby's were auctioneers trying to be gentlemen and Christie's were gentlemen trying to be auctioneers. This old sally is clearly due for some revision, for Christie's are about to abandon their lofty stance and move more directly into the area of commerce. They have become aware that there is money in contemporary art as well as in the old masters, and are going into the mail-order business with limited editions of lithographs and etchings by such artists as Patrick Procktor and Barbara Hepworth.
Theatres of war
These are troubled days for relations between playwrights and players. At the Aldwych, John Arden — with photographers in attendance — has been picketing the stage-door in protest against what they are doing to his play, The Island of the Mighty. Meanwhile at the Royal Court, John Osborne has been in some danger of being picketed by the players in A Sense of Detachment in protest against the raw language he has put into their mouths, especially that of Rachel Kempson (Lady Redgrave). Odd, is it not, that the Royal Court players did not read their scripts before signing to play their parts, and that Arden (who has sat through six weeks of rehearsal) did not think to make his nicely publicised gesture until the eve of his play's premiere?
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