Will Waspe
H. M. Tennent Ltd. is a firm which not so long ago dominated theatrical management in the West End of London, with most of our leading players under contract and up to a dozen plays running concurrently. The decline of the Tennent influence has more or less paralleled the rising influence of the big subsidised companies, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company — although to some extent the influence has continued, since Tennents' managing director, Mr Hugh (' Binkie ') Beaumont, is on the governing boards of both these organisations.
Today Tennents have an interest in only one West End show (Godspell), their staff has been greatly reduced recently, and the impression in theatreland has been that the firm was quietly retiring from all production activity. Such an assumption is evidently premature: a tour of Godspell is in the wind and other projects are under consideration. My notion is that if Tennents bow out of management it will be with a spanking revival of some play that is packed with nostalgia for the heyday of the commercial theatre. The mooted revival of Coward's Private Lives, starring Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, might present a suitable 'grand finale' opportunity.
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Can it be that John Osborne and the director, Anthony Page, have lost some of their well-known rapport? Except for a short work, A Bond Honoured, produced by the 'National Theatre, Page has directed all Osborne's plays from Inadmissible Evidence in 1964 to his recent adaptation of lbsen's Hedda Gabler.
In the case of the latter, there were some noticeable discrepancies between Osborne's published text and the play as it appeared on the Royal Court stage. I merely mention this in passing, while recording that Osborne's next play, A Sense of Detachment, due at the Royal Court in December, is to be directed by the Young Vic's Frank Dunlop.
Fingers crossed
Speaking of directors, I see that Jonathan Miller is again reported to be renouncing the theatre in favour of his medical interests — at least to the extent of taking a 'sabbatical' of something over a year to complete a couple of books on medical subjects. Lovers of the classical theatre — and of Shakespeare in particular — are advised, however, to restrain their elation for we have heard such reports and rumours before. I'm sure that if some lavishly subsidised theatre company were to offer him the chance to ' re-interpret ' a classical work sufficiently respected to be worth assaulting, the good doctor would not be able to resist taking up his directorial scalpel.
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