HONG
KONG GOVERNMENT OFFICE
6 GRAFTON STREET
LONDON
WIX 3 L B
Mrs. Janet Harland,
5 Westcombe Park Road, London, S.E.3.
LAR]
Dear Mrs. Harland,
Ri
12th July, 1977
AFOWVED IN RECS BY N. 51
ماما
19 JUL 1977
HKK 210/1
was
The Bowsprit Company's play, "Empire Made" first drawn to my attention by Mr. Ewan Hooper, Director of the Greenwich Theatre, in a letter dated 17 June. As a result of this, Mr. Ronald Boxall, my Public Affairs Officer, spoke to Mr. Hooper and later received from him a copy of the Teachers' Notes issued in connection with the play. Subsequently, we received an invitation from Miss June Mitchell to send a representative to a special performance of the play on the next day, 6 July, which she said would be followed by a discussion and a screening of a television documentary film on child labour in Hong Kong. I myself and my senior officers were not free at such short notice to attend the performance but I was represented at the performance by Mr. Hugh Witt, my Assistant Public Affairs Officer, who, on my instruction, did not take any part in the discussion. Afterwards, I received a full report of the play which, as you know, is unscripted.
I wish to inform your Board of Governors that I object most strongly to both the play and the Teachers' Notes. If I may deal with the latter first: the bibliography attached to the Notes lists a number of objective publications (including some of our own) and others which I regard as questionable because of their strong left-wing political bias. I understand that a representative of the Theatre called at the Library of this Office during the preparation of the Notes and collected certain literature, but did not reveal the purpose of the research. Miss Mitchell has since acknow- ledged that it was a mistake not to have taken this Office into the Company's confidence at an early stage of the
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