Celebrities Consulted For Student Revue

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31661, 23 April 1968, Page 10

Celebrities Consulted For Student Revue

By PETER WILSON Before writing the script for this year’s students’ revue, “Watch for the Opening Date,” Alan Grant undertook extensive overseas research and consulted many prominent show business people. Three years passed before he returned to the antipodes as the standard bearer of the new wave of British satire. The result is a revue in the “grand old tradition of big casts and ballets” yet boasting the first original script in years—a welcome departure from the tradition of using scenes from earlier revues or from other university productions. The revue deals extensively with the Pan Pathetic Arts Festival and with the machinations of Sir James Colic. * =k * In an Interview, Mr Grant described his research, which involved meeting actors, writers, and singers, and sifting the many reactions to first nights. “I attended one first night with Diana Rigg,” said Mr Grant “I don’t think we were separated by much more than six rows. “I was also at a first night with Peter Cook. I agreed with every word he had to say about the play. It was quite amazing how our views concurred. “It was a pity, though, that I wasn't actually talking to him and was just listening to him talking to someone else.”

He attended another first night with Sir Lewis Casson and Dame Sybil Thorndike.

“She is a very imperious old lady and looks quite magnificent. Lewis is a thin, rather hunched-up chap, very much dominated by her. “It wasn’t a very good play and he was muttering and

groaning. She said, ‘Don’t be so stupid Lewis,’ and before I could say hello she dragged him to the foyer to meet someone he didn’t want to see.” Mr Grant described his encounters with actors away from the theatre as often much more rewarding. He drank with David Warner, then playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the subject of pop-star level adulation from young girls, on the terrace of a pub at Stratford which overlooked the Avon. “Someone said, ‘Good day Dave, you’re looking terrible,’ and he said, ‘I feel terrible’,” Mr Grant recalled. “Then their school moved inside. “Another interesting encounter was when I was introduced to Paul Scofield. He looked tall and distinguished. We had a stimulating exchange. I said, ‘How do you do,' to him and he said, ‘Hello’ to me. “I also met Sir Laurence Olivier. He comes up from Brighton every morning through Waterloo station. He was walking along towards the National Theatre with his briefcase and I was walking along to my office with mine and we collided briefly. “I said, ‘Sorry.’ I didn't realise who he was until he had gone past. It was a pity because I could have stopped and given him some of my farmyard impressions they are known and avoided up and down the country.” Mr Grant had an appropriate base for his research — a flat in Hampstead which had been occupied previously by a psychotic playwright who had written several West End hits there and had set fire to the wall of one room. “My flatmate—Jim Laurenson, an actor from Christchurch—had a girl friend who used to flat with Julie Christie. “We spent months jacking

up a meeting with Julie but on the night we arrived too late—and missed her by 10 minutes.” There were many other meetings but Mr Grant wanted to save his accounts of them for dining out He agreed that these encounters with “the greats of show business” had all contributed to his writing. However, his script, while drawing on overseas trends, was basically topical and local. “You know, one of the good things about writing a revue now is television—it enables us all to see what good revue and satire is like,” he said. >K * ft The revue is being produced by Gerry Orchard, with assistance from “a veteran trouper,” who, in his time, has turned his talents to acting, producing, writing and film-making, but who for contractual reasons must remain anonymous. This year for the first time revue will include a film, “Hororata Mon Amour,” photographed by Warren Sellers, and owing a great deal to the legal fraternity. The ballets are by Robyn Hamburger, the sets are by Tony Brittenden, the construction work by a team led by Ken McAnergney, and the musical director is George Crow. The revue will run from April 26 to May 4 in the Civic Theatre.