CAPITAL OF THE FILM WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 20993, 6 January 1932, Page 1

CAPITAL OF THE FILM WORLD

ENGLAND'S CHANCE “INFERIORITY COMPLEX” IN WALES. A day when England will supply films for the world, and tho home televisor be a commonplace was hopefully foreseen by Mr Shaw Desmond, the novelist and publicist, in a lecture to tho Liverpool Welsh National Society in the Royal Institution on ‘ The Theatre and Screen of the Future.’ “ During tho last few weeks,” he said, “I have been going from theatre to theatre. I have come to tho conclusion that in London there are only two pieces worth any intelligent man’s attention for more than an hour. One is ‘ The Anatomist,’ by that extraordinary playwright, James Bridie, and the other is ‘ Queen Elizabeth,’ which is interesting for its double stage. “ I have also been making a round of tho films, and I have discovered that, although the cinema and tho theatre audiences were originally quite distinct, the cinema is becoming the feeder of the theatre, which has not done such good business for years. I perceive, too, that the stuff from Hollywood is almost invariably secondrate. The Americans think it is good enough for England, but’ Elstree is mastering technical difficulties, and some day England will supply films for tho world. TELEVISION COMING.

“J believe television is coming in, but I do not think it will have any adverse effect on newspapers. Nothing can make up for the printed word in its won province.” He thought England was likely to dominate the world’s character films. The English still produced the greatest body of actors in Europe, even if they were not now producing individual men of genius, and the hope of the theatre lay with the repertory movement. When lie was adjudicating at the Sheffield Play Festival, Mr Shaw Desmond awarded first prize to the Cambrian Players, and lie said this week that if the Welsh, with their great dramatic potentialities,, would only rid themselves of their ■ inhibitions _ and give up some of their “sectarianism,” they should produce some of the greatest actors. And Wales should have a national theatre. “ The Irish suffer from a superiority complex, and the Welsh from an inferiority complex, both absolutely unjustified,” added Mr Desmond, who is an Irishman.: