By some it has been felt to be too abstract and at times based on objects whose provenance and date were contested
By some it has been felt to be too abstract and at times based on objects whose provenance and date were contested He worked more in his study than in the field. But Kitzinger’s scholarly range was awe-inspiring, and at his best he was marvellously persuasive in his localisations and subsequent interpretations of the material. His passing hugely impoverishes the study of medieval art and the discipline as a whole.Julian Gardner. Peter Saunders, theatre manager and producer: born London 23 November 1911; member of the board, Society of West End Theatre (later the Society of London Theatre) 1954-2003, president 1961-62 and 1967-69, vice-president 1988-93, honorary vice-president 1999; Kt 1982; married 1959 Ann Stewart (died 1976), 1979 Katie Boyle; died London 6 February 2003. Although he was one of the more prolific theatrical impresarios of his era, Peter Saunders inevitably became known for one production only, as he acknowledged wryly in the title of his 1972 autobiography, The Mousetrap Man. Saunders would have had none of such fanciful metaphorical theories.
When asked the secret of its continuing success, he said, “It’s a guessing game, with suspense and comedy, and the whole family can enjoy it.”For him, Agatha Christie provided just what the West End needed, good solid entertainment (he presented many of Christie’s plays). His early experience as journalist and as press-agent was an important factor in the play’s development into a phenomenon; Saunders shrewdly capitalised on anything that might help publicise the show, including holding an annual party at the Savoy, always to lavish press coverage, to clock up every extra year of the run.He had never aimed to be an innovative producer. After education at Oundle School, near Peterborough, he briefly worked in films as a cameraman before Fleet Street experience and Army service during the Second World War, when he ended up as a Captain. Troop shows encouraged his managerial leanings and he presented his first West End production, Fly Away, Peter (St James’s), not a great success, in 1947.It was the eye-opening experience of touring Christie’s Black Coffee (1950) to remarkable box-office receipts that persuaded him to turn to more of her work. A twist-packed courtroom drama almost as successful as Witness for the Prosecution was Hostile Witness (Haymarket, 1964) for which he imported the Hollywood actor Ray Milland to star.Saunders also had a penchant for the light political comedies of William Douglas-Home, presenting The Manor of Northstead (Duchess, 1954), The Reluctant Peer (Duchess, 1964), with Sybil Thorndike, and The Jockey-Club Stakes (Vaudeville, 1970), with Wilfrid Hyde-White.A rare excursion into more controversial work was his transfer from the Mermaid of Bill Naughton’s episodic play of the Cockney philanderer Alfie (Duchess, 1963).
But as theatrical tastes changed, Saunders stayed mostly resolutely entrenched in his own kind of theatre, concentrating on mild thrillers – Justice is a Woman (Vaudeville, 1966), comedies such as Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s Move Over Mrs Markham (Vaudeville, 1971) or star-packed revivals including Arsenic and Old Lace (Vaudeville, 1966) with Sybil Thorndike, Athene Seyler and Richard Briers.Saunders tried to climb onto the 1970s musical-anthology bandwagon with a “tribute” (no creator credited) to the impresario he most admired, C.B. Cochran, but Cockie (Vaudeville, 1975) was a misbegotten enterprise, with only the sublime Max Wall emerging with any glory.A lucrative business deal – he loved telephone negotiations with landlords and agents – was Saunders’s acquisition in 1971 of Volcano Productions, run by a producer with a similar philosophy and tastes, John Gale. This gave Saunders an entr?into several highly successful productions – including another epic runner No Sex Please, We’re British (Strand, 1971) and Douglas-Home’s Lloyd George Knew My Father (Savoy, 1972) with Sir Ralph Richardson and Dame Peggy Ashcroft – although the shows included also some authentic turkeys, the nadir perhaps being a piece of surpassing tat, billed as a farce, Birds of Paradise (Garrick, 1973) with Moira Lister involved in mix-ups with the “birds” in a tropical- island brothel.Saunders for a very large part of his entrepreneurial career was active in the Society of West End Theatre (Swet – now the Society of London Theatre) including two stints as its president, and was much admired by fellow-producers for his handling of business affairs. He remained an unrepentant dinosaur in some ways – he always resisted any suggestion of offering tickets at anything less than full price for his productions – but for all his sometimes gruff and peppery manner he was greatly respected within the theatre industry and by many actors, while his staff – including Verity Hudson, his general manager – were fiercely loyal.His second marriage, to Katie Boyle, gave him great happiness in his later years.Alan Strachan. In such times, the nation, understandably, looks for reassurance that the traditions which have sustained it for so long are being maintained It is rarely let down.
See, inter multa alia, the RAF promising to bomb a bit better this time, and the Army waiting for boots while it kits itself out in Millets. Some see our spies in the images of Fleming and Le Carr?We prefer the usual combination of Peter Sellers, Terry- Thomas, Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, George Formby and Private Pike.And also in this case, irresistibly, Wormold, Greene’s Man in Havana, who passed off sketches of vacuum cleaner parts as missile plans. We say: check the general’s pictures for a plug and flex now!. Imagine that the drafters of the American constitution had written: “We the people and the states of America establish a union which shall administer certain competences according to the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.”
Imagine that the drafters of the American constitution had written: “We the people and the states of America establish a union which shall administer certain competences according to the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.”
And so on for 16 tortuous articles written in tone-deaf bureaucratese. Would that have inspired a young nation with the high ideals of the American dream?The problem with Val? Giscard d’Estaing is that – right down to the mock aristocratic title – he represents old Europe: de haut en bas. His chairmanship of the convention charged with drawing up a new constitution for the expanded European Union implied a bias towards more of the same.So it has proved.
