Will Waspe
The production of his hobby-horse show, An Evening with Mr Ziegfeld — The Follies, has already cost petrol-station tycoon Ian Trotter something over a quarter of a million, and is likely to cost him a great deal more, now that he has had to postpone the scheduled October opening — probably until next spring. I gather that the difficulties have to do with the attitudes of theatrical technicians involved in the installation and operation of the innovatory — and expensive — equipment designed for the show.
Indeed it may well be that Trotter will have an interesting submission to make to the Restrictive Practices Court when and if Shirley Williams's new legislation (which will cover show business industries) goes through.
Princess patron
Readers of The Spectator's correspondence columns will be intrigued to hear that Princess Alexandra (mother of two) is due to attend a preview of the new musical, A Little Night Music — in aid of Population CountDown.
DIsappearmg drama
The first consequence of the appointment of Verity Lambert as Head of Drama at Thames Television is that the company has abandoned drama — by which I mean, of course, single plays as opposed to series and serials. Thames say they haven't really; that they're just giving their 'Armchair Theatre' a year's breather to re-think the policy; but no one is guaranteeing that the re-think won't come up in favour of permanent abandonment of what is admitted to he one of the costliest sorts of TV production to mount.
Drama has always been the big headache of the ITV companies, and a constant bone of contention between the 'artistic' personnel and the commercial chaps in the top office. Plays are at once the hardest properties to sell overseas, and yet the ones that must be sold overseas if production costs are to be recouped, The big companies would quite happily leave drama to such regional companies as Yorkshire and.Anglia, which will always grab chances of getting on the full network. So a thumbs-down decision at Thames would be no great surprise.
Wherever he goes
I have never seen the BBC-tv news-and-views programme, Look North, which is not screened in the south, but those who do see it must have noticed some surprising changes — such as the advent of Michael Cook as link-man and the abrupt departure of the previous two link-men. Cook used to work for Radio Sheffield but was not quite everybody's favourite at that station and the BBC thought it would be a tactful move to transfer him to World at One. Not being terribly happy there either, he applied for the Look North job, got it, and the two men on the programme who were to have been his colleagues promptly resigned.
How Scottish?
As my colleague Rodney Milnes reports from Edinburgh (opposite page), the Swedes have been greatly endearing themselves to Scots music-lovers this season. This may very well have influenced Scottish Opera in their choice of a replacement for Sheila Armstrong (stricken with gall bladder trouble) in their autumn production of Der Rosenkavalier. The lady stepping into the breach is Birgit Nordin of the Royal Swedish Opera. No one will complain about that, but with Romania's Julia Varady replacing Miss Baker in Alceste, and now Miss Nordin replacing Miss Armstrong, chauvinistic Scots may well be asking themselves how Scottish is Scottish Opera?
Pied piper
The management of Sheffield's Crucible Theatre have been well pleased with Ed Thomason, artistic director of their studio theatre, and though they were glad to congratulate him on his appointment to the Belgrade, Coventry, they were also sorry to lose him. They are sorrier still now, for he has lured all his key personnel at the Crucible over to the Belgrade.
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