12 JUNE 1947, Page 5

I hear that Sir Barry Jackson and the Stratford-on-Avon Memorial

Theatre authorities have offered to give a series of Shakespearean performances for the German prisoners in the many camps in the neighbourhood. This is the kind of action everyone must applaud. The repatriation of the prisoners is proceeding far too slowly, and most of us have a bad conscience about the whole business now that the war has been over more than two years. But a friendly action like this does something at any rate to mitigate asperities and bridge gulfs, and it is particularly satisfactory that when an opportunity does present itself to show Germans British drama it should be the best that British drama has to offer. Mr. Bellenger, whose responsibility the prisoners are, must welcome such a move almost as much as the