1960-03-24 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1960.

This week, with two new shows on the way, and 25 years ufter 'French Without Tears'... a fascinating self-analysis

The way I work

XTRITING

Is

W lonely business:

vory and

if you are writing intontaly it CAR bacomo rather frightoning.

I want somehow to be kept company, not distracted. So that is why I have a record player on when I am working, usually Puccint I am afraid. It's emotional and wildly theatrical. But I don't hear it,

I write in longhand 1 21 loose notebook, usually Immured In the country without distrac tlons, for I am by nature lazy.

My dread

I like writing in the English countryside, in fact, I could not imagine working anywhere else, I think I would lose touch and like

deep every writer down. I read drying up not in ideas, but in the ability to make words live.

Why is it, I wonder, that 11 "well-made play" is пош a term almost of abuse? Why do Some people think an ill-made play t synonymous with in- play in cerity? Just because a constructed, built, and shaped I doesn't mean that it is written without passion or even palu-

When writing I get complete ty carried away. I laugh and ery perhaps taunuderately at my own

by

Terence Rattigan

-TALKING TO JOHN CRUESEMANN

seriously when, in fact, we are -tried. It has been a strange ex- providers of words for perience, someUmes almost simply

driving me round the bendi sctors to speak.

Yet I hate fake humility, I thought "French. without Teurs" the funniest play I'd read once I had writen It, 1 am at proud that it was thin play which established Rex Bar rison as a stor 24 years ago, just as "The Deep Blue Sea" made Kenneth More into a star eight years ago,

to

In fact, I om unclear as what I really nm. But one gift I know I've got the ability to reproduce out of my head what

man somebody,

or Woman, would say in a given situation.

en

My gift

Another gift that posibly I claim is that I ean sense how no

be syllable should wasted that does not forward the netion or reveal character.

what

school to most about.

I am not attached in the Play lines. remember once at leas; it is the people In the when I was writing "The play who can have lens, I is Browning Verslon" Thy man not the part of a playwright to

mind to prescribe came in and asked mo ruther my oddly if anything was the mat midiences should think or feel,

ulira-kitchen ter. Apparently I was not even Ti4 conscious that tears Were seems to reject that part of life streaming down my face.

outside the kitchen which

the some of us is stil In play-writing you compose

-writing and Into him you worth-while character put most of yourself,

A novelist ul work is alf- ferent. He can make asides, tio tricks with time, watch and wonder. Tie enn plny God to his own characters.

apt

Maybe as playwrights we are

10

too take ourselves

CANADA RACES

FOR `NATURAL'

A-REACTOR

Toronto.

It has taken me around fve years quite a contrast with

White The Sun' Shines."

But that doesn't mean "Rois" is that much better as a work, merely more arduous,

Most people have a precon- ceived opinion about Lawrence. In a case like this you can only write convincingly about such a person it, after absorbing everything written and spoken about him, you can make the man tive for yourself, your problem is to communicate that life to the audience. I hope 1 shall succeed, but I know I shall arouse a lot of controversy.

--(London Express Service).

Then

GERMAN MILITAS

S

PATAL

FRANCE

“Mac... Norstad says, 'Is it OK. for Adenauer to use Trafalgar Squaro for A-bomb `tosts ?'"

THE NEW ELITE .. CHAPTER THREE

OOKING at him you would say he is a lightweight. When he

the walked

aisle re- cently with Lady Pamela After all, Hemiet didn't do his he looked a lightweight.

own washing up.

John Osborne is in the true tradition of the theatre but his trouble seems to be that while his plays are about people and not about things, he appears to think they are about things and not about people. And he has been persunded by his critics that his plays have been de- Es- on the vastating attacks tablishment.

In future, he will have to find

a destructive fdenlogy to satisfy

his erities or lose himself f

under which leads nowhere.

Say

CANADA is in a race in

Very good looking with A sulle that smooth features.

placid seemed to pleasure rather than a sense of happiness. He

easily younger

moves

and looks somewhat than his 30 years. A lightweight?

A deceptive front.

Toughness

YOUNG MAN,

HAS CHARM.

WILL TRAVEL

(UPWARDS, OF COURSE!).

by DONALD EDGAR

London Express Barrica

So far as I can make out the attraction of David Hicks to Lady Pamela was a consider- able surprise to his world.

But

they have loolood happy a pair as my newlyweda. The only shadow that has Inilen across their happiness was the cows of the death of Lady Mountbatten on their re- tar from the honeymoon.

The last time they had seen her she was wishing them God-

the speed from

Koll Broadlands.

of

And Hicks, undaunted by all the nurs of royalty and power, is still thinking in terms of kie Interior decorating.

He has great ideas of improv- ing the standards of taste in all homes.

the Ho

There is something of William Morris in him. wants to bring new standards of beauty to homes and believes that it will be possible now to do it on a mass scale.

Ability

Jack Gibson, a very forward- looking man, is negotiating to employ Hicks as a consultant' in 1 great store in liford.

I think loks would always havo been #LOOGKRÉU:). In his own indirect way he has great outrageous strength of character. He has

diffident ability. And charm.

DAVID HOOKS AND LADY PAMELA MOUNTBATTEN

quite

ideas In а

Extended

For David Hicks has shown a Watch out-It's a grave dan-toughness, a subtlety, a skill in gor for a playwright to have to social relationships and эл something. Look how ability to seize the main chance gloriously Brendan Behan can which have brought him finan- interior de- write just because he makes his elal success as an

bride, their (coralor and, as a

Lady characters live and do

talking. That 18 realPamela, daughter of Lord Mountbatten, relative of the

And be had just the right expressing interested in any scheme which show those toughies who took and Theatre.

Queen and Prince Philip.

He is not unique. Rather he might increase the number of the mlexey out of him of school sort of personality to get on well urustie

their stately and in the army, that he was with the rich women who are miner. in a very successful example of people visiting Comedy is harder to write type that has moved elegantly homes and get quite a thrill going to do rather better than able to indulge in such things. natural uranium instead than serlous drare. If the into Belgravia and Chelsea in out of doing the Duke of Bed- them.

ford down of the much more expen-audience doesn't laugh the play the last 10 years.

is #nished. Comedy should be fairly hearless. In fact, the heart should hardly come into It at all.

Britain

Russia to produce an My newest atomic reactor using

sive enriched uranium.

I

"If we win the raev, und think

Then we are going to,

have won wilf

"While The Sun Shines" Chunda

market." said wrote in 10 days. It ran three tremendous Robert Macaulay, Minister

years. Now it is more difficult, Energy Hesources in the On-

and I find comedy harder per- tario avernment.

haps because I an older, but I Most zation: have

Choudh

am going to try. urniture to such

natural

renelors.

"The United Slates aticking to reactors using the carlehed uranijum because it is Country possessing the only large socks,

نيا

ir Canadia can_corner world Market for natural ramunt reactors, mosi coun-

would switch tries

this method, if only to by-pass the U.S. monopoly,"

the

(Lunda Express Servler),

now

Background

They are generally not very rich. But they have excellent connections, which they develop with an assiduity that The aristocracy works in the Proust would have admired city, in shops, In cafes and is almost envied.

often delighted to get a footing in Fleet Street.

More the rich are often so dull that anyone with talent is

They dine with the rich and the powerful because they are and the rich and

arc

in always the powerful search of the amusing.

amusing

and

a welcome guest.

This is the

The fact that he has been husband of Lady accepted as Pamela Mountbatten is more result of this age--of post-war the London

a

These

interior fashionable His background is fairly well-

decorators occupy 4 curious Hla mother remained known now. He la the son of a

the lives of there central figure of his life, pro- stockbroker who died leaving place in

Probably in the past he would they Песат

are viding a background and the never have had his widow in comfortable

chance of cha Wonnen.

talented and have ideas, to a capital on which he started. meeting her. cumstances.

frtain extent they fulfil a ride His friends were mainly drawn

But he did and has proved first from his professional more

to acceptable

Lauty. of the women's lives.

They are part of their lives, world.

*Pamela than all

youn He studied hard and won

grandees and guardees with all just as their dress designers are.

And out of this

artistic name for getting things done on their tonventional backgrounds intimacy springs the social e time, whether it was a question and tastes. The parties. The dinners. The of ensigna

He was brought up in East Anglie and early developed an interest and some talent in art. After the army he went to art school and for a time played with the idea of becoming an artist.

But as his mother has cald, invitations for the weekend.

Hicks began to move around. "David realised that If you paint

volee was heard pletures the money doesn't come And the soft

And in unit you are dead.

I like to ring the changes in

background of mood in writing. I followed

In return they may not offer David Hicks, the background in "The Deep Blue Sea" with

more than a cocktoll. But the which he and many others like "The Sleeping Prince," and

girls will be pretty

the tim have fourished.

David was interested in money.” I have

the enjoyed

atmosphere interesting.

So David and his mother Juinpasion of adapting у

Hicks didn't like his school, settled in Belgravia and he went Sixty years ago or more it was first comedy. French Without necessary to have the consum- Charterhouse. He didn't like Into the world of interior de- Tears" as a musical, and writ-inate conversational skill of an the army although he was given corating and furnishing. ing "Rous" about Lawrence of Oscar Wilde to be entertained the cushy job of teaching art. It is a curious world, a world Arabia.

But, as happens often with of beautiful things, of guy by those who led society.

Society was still immensely the odd man okit, he was whimsical colour combinations, contained. But now the barriers developing an inner, sirength. of rich materials, of subtle are down. The aristocracy is A feeling that he was going to lighting.

"Ross" is a tremendous chal- lenge. 11 is a dramatic portrait, the first play of this kind I have

DES!!

HOLLYWOOD

UNFAIR

HOLLYWOOD

UNFAIR

ΤΟ

ACTORS

"Hlm Paloface plaket-Him: Redakia pickat. They say wo no shoot.

London Exerom Bervión.

workmen.

the

up cr hurrying

Hicks has proved that for him and those of his world thero is The shop behind Lowndes plenty of room at the top. Square was extended.

-{London Exprem Berulca).

Radiation fears grow

HE Radiological Pro as

THE

tection Service backed by the Ministry of Health and the Medi- cal Research Council- Is keeping a close watch on the development of bigger, more powerful TV sets. The reason? They are a potential source of X-rays, which might harm viewers un- less they are properly protected.

TV screens

spread out

The World

of Science

By Peter Fairley

ber hollowed out in North Downs chalk. Chalk was chosen

because it contains little naturnä radio-activity.

"We rarely and an excessive dose of radiation," sold Mr Smith, "and we have sover found an alarming amount of radio-activity inside single person. We have found maxi- mum pertiiss!ble "Tuvels somé-

Research into the problem radiation, to which everyone in times but these are safe," Lagoing on at the service's Britain is exposed.

An international commission headquarters, Belmont, Surrey,

But Mr Smith says: "People recommended those levels. How There I was told. "A TV tube who do not need luminous safe are they? Well, it says that sizes get bigger, and voltages go articles are just as well off with a man can stand 26 roentgens of up, X-ray protection will become out them."

radiation in a single exposttro in more and more important.”

new fluorescent poster an nevident. The Weekly per- At present, the

have been tested X-rays paints

at missible level laid down by the beamed out by a TV set are Belmont. So has a pair of girl's RPS-for continuous exposure.... stopped by the thickness of the socks-bright green-sont in by is 250 times lower. rings cathoda

The

•

rey tube. But an anxious mother. Back went with higher voliages, as ane the happy report: "No radio- LATEST solentido likely, for example, in colour activity whatsoever." television, extra megards will The needed.

These may take the form of #till thicker gings, or on screen, additional protective with low sprayed around the inside of the cabinet,

Watches, too

Total dose

But the bulk of the work of the RPS consists of controllig radiation hazards in hospitals and industries where X-rays or radio-active, substances used.

Somo 200,000 film badgen........ Although such radiation doses which turn shades of black if would be small, gonetically they radinilon strikes them are now aro signideant because of the handled each year. A complete vast numbers of viewera.

history of the total dose recdived

As Mr E. E. Smith, doputy by a person over the years + 1s Each director of the Service, put it: kept on punched, carda. "Low doses over a large popula- film est core three,illings. tion are equal to high domos to a Anything unusual revealed by few people, in their genette it, is followed up and protection effoot."

Mousuren advised. Luminous wrist-watches and Any person BUEDDOLO of look art under. constant having rattle-activity inalde himn · scrutiny too. It is cutimated is given a further check in a that they add only one per osat special Low Background Ito the "natural background" of Laboratory—a lead-lined cham-

gardeners—a complete ready- mado flower bed. It arrives nestly rolled, through the post. Just // wprinkle it - with Wafer and a little tep-soll, the maakera claim, and a mam of gorgeous. Bloom will spring up.

'Eye' for value

The prowess of a diamond expert

is being challenge --- by machine. One has been built now which projrets a picture of the diamond on to a screen en thol'a customer can see the Baws.

The projector magnifies a one-

carat stone 4,050 times

The screen is divided into 4,000 sqitares By counting the num» fer of aqinros darkened to faws, the value of the dias • mond can be assessed,

-(London Xxpruge dervice),