5 MARCH 1965, Page 9

Enter Burgess

Anthony Burgess, the novelist and Spectator re- viewer, next week takes over our theatre column. He has been a dramatic critic before—for the oldest paper in Europe. This was the Gibraltar Chronicle, for which he wrote for a year or two just after the war when Gibraltar and its troops were a great try-out ground for many London productions. He has also lectured in drama and dabbled in some rather esoteric productions—a totally uncut Handet done in the round, a Macbeth with the original Elizabethan pronunci- ations, and one of Juno and the Pay cock in Ban- bury performed entirely by Oxfordshire locals all of whom he schooled to speak perfect Irish. We may hope he starts on a happier note than the one on which Malcolm Rutherford ended. Ruther- ford concluded his temporary spell as theatre critic on Monday with an incipient fight in a night club simply because he asked the people behind to shut up during the cabaret. One man was led out threatening to break his bloody neck.