SUNDAY THEATRES.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20564, 4 June 1932, Page 7

SUNDAY THEATRES.

SIR OSWALD STOLI/S VIEW'S. (MtOlt OUR OWI CORHEBPQNDBXT.) LONDON, April 23. Now that tiie Sunday Cinema Bill has obtained a second reading in the House of Commons, Sir Oswald Stoll has returned to the question of the opening of theatres on Sunday. "From the religious standpoint," ho writes in a letter to "The Times," "it is both common sense and logic to bolieve that, as the Sabbath was made for man, it was made for the theatrical man as well as for the cinema man. Indeed, there is much more of the human element about the theatre proper than about the cinema. In the cinema the labour is in the main unskilled. In the theatre the contrary is true. Artists, musicians, 'engineers, and bo forth have to appear in person, while the number of doormen and ushers required by a theatre at least equals the number required by a cinema. ... "The employment question in favour of a wider Bill has also both common sense and logic on its side. If employment is a good thing surely it is well that skilled labour should not be deprived of its opportunities. If a day of rest is necessary, surely this should be imposed rather upon the over-em-ployed than on the under-employed. The unskilled labour employed day by day in the cinemas extends generally from early morning to late at night, year in and year out. On the other hand, the skilled labour of theatres is rendered precarious not only by depression in trade, but by seasonal changes which throw whole companies of it out of employment for weeks together during the summer. It is clearly a mockery of both common sense and logic to enforce upon these people a further day of rest. "If the theatres are allowed to open on Sundays, and the puMic wiU riot attend them, these people will then, of course, have the extra day of rest but they will* do so, without smarting under a sense of injustice, for they will at least know that the Government was willing though the public were weak, or strong, £ls common sense and logic together may with confidence bo left, to docidG. . "In my view there is neither common sense nor logic in allowing cinemas to open on Sundays unless theatres are allowed to oy«w also."