MUSICAL ON CRIPPEN

Press, Volume C, Issue 29508, 9 May 1961, Page 10

MUSICAL ON CRIPPEN

Critics Say “Bad Taste”

(N .Z.P.A .-Reuter—Co-pyright) LONDON, May 7

A new British musical comedy, "Belle of the Ballad of Dr. Crippen,” based on the Crippen murder, and written by Wolf Mankowitz and Monty Norman is in bad taste, said most critics after the opening night. The writers suggest that putting the show on assumes that British audiences find the killing of human beings comic and enjoyable. One says that the next legitimate step may be a show calle'd “Eichmann On Ice.” Mankowitz defends the olay by saying: “Look, it’s the responsibility of an artificer in the theatre to use the strongest human material available. "I am not interested in working in the theatre unless I can work with dangerous fissionable material. “I am interested in the realities of the human individual rather than the judgments of society. “This is not just comedy, it is tragi-comedy. I want to move people the best way. Part of the critics' objections stemmed from the fact that Ethel le Neve, secretary of Crippen at the time of the murder, is still alive. She is 78. living quietly in London. She went abroad after the trial, and came back 'o England as a secretary, and married. She has two children and a grandson, none of whom know who she la. She is partially blind.