Will Waspe's Whispers
Charles Marowitz, director of the Open Space Theatre, may have a personal axe to grind in his assault on the constitution of the Arts Council's drama panel — but he also has a sharp and valid point, and ombudsman Sir Alan Marre would be well advised to take seriously the demand for an investigation which Marowitz is submitting through Maurice Edelman, MP. The theatre man will have no difficulty in sutltantiating his statement that over two-thirds of the members of the thirty-strong drama panel are in some way connected with the recipients of Arts Council grants. Nor are the connections especially remote. The English Stage Company has its chairman on the panel, the National Theatre its administrator, the Royal Shakespeare a couple of players and its ex-treasurer, the Mermaid one of its governors. Some provincial subsidised companies are also represented.
Do they ' lobby ' for their own interests? Perhaps not. But it's not a situation that would long be tolerated in any other committee handling public funds. Marowitz (prepared to risk losing his own grant which he regards as too insignificant to worry about) criticises the whole set-up of the panel, and especially the selfperpetuating co-opting procedure whereby present members determine its future constitution. And he makes no bones about saying that a deep-digging investigation of the relationship between Arts Council panel members and the recipients of awards and hand-outs down the years would unearth plenty of eyebrow-raising facts.
Royal blues
The Queen and a supporting company of other royals will be at the London Palladium on Monday for one of HM's less enviable engagements, her annual sit through the remnants of a dying profession. The Royal Variety Performance — in the almost total absence of music hall, and even ' variety ' as we used to know it — has become a wan homage to 'the box they buried it in ': television. Included this year (if I may jerk further tears on behalf of our put-upon sovereign) is Hughie Green, who will introduce a representative of Opportunity Knocks.' Next year perhaps, It's a Knock-out and all-in wrestling.
I've always thought, by the way, that those snide mutters about the show's being impresario Bernard Delfont's annual chance to promote the interests of himself and his brothers, Lew and Les, were a bit unfair: after all, the showbiz interests of Bernie and the Grades are so pervasive that it must be hard for him to find performers who don't work for the family in some way or other. There may, however, be a touch of truth in the suggestion that if only he would stop subjecting the Queen to these torments, Bernie might join Lew among the showbiz knights
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