E-mail to a friend

Smoke and daggers

Published Monday 26 October 2009 at 16:30

Poor Charles Spencer, he does seem to be taking some stick of late, even to the point of making Dame Judi blaspheme in fury at his bold criticism of her. One less fan club member there then Charles.

I remember once writing a letter to him, complaining about a play he’d favourably reviewed at the time. His review was so good that I was moved to go and see it. However, what he failed to include in his piece was the fact that nearly all of the cast seemed to be smoking cigarettes for most of the duration of the play! In fact the whole atmosphere of the theatre became so mirky that the audience were left wondering if they’d come to see Fanny by Gaslight by mistake.

Mr Spencer did have the decency to reply though, in the old-fashioned way of the time, whereby one would type out a letter on a much cherished typewriter, sign it by hand with a wonderful fountain pen and painstakingly place it in a lined envelope, then to complete the process one covered a gummed stamp with horribly infectious saliva and stuck it on the front of the envelope. Marvellous.

I must add that while his reply was polite, it was less than sympathetic as he revealed to me that he too was a smoker and found the theatre atmosphere quite agreeable.

Perhaps smoke-free theatres are causing Mr Spencer to become tetchy in his dotage.

Harriet Blackbury

Email supplied

E-mail to a friend