Sometimes I may overdo that 'It's All More Complicated' thing...
On my way home from work (booooooo!) I was accosted on Euston station by someone who was pretty certainly Not A Londoner and clearly getting confused by the bumbling, buzzing chaos that is Euston station even when various upgrade works are not in progress (my dearios, I will not expatiate, but these have been sources of irk for several months to yr hedjog).
Anyway, we were standing under an unhelpful bit of signage saying 'Lift to Underground', but actual lift was far from obvious (this is why we constantly see people manhandling huge suitcases and large pushchairs on the escalators).
She wanted to get to the Underground. So I was, 'Euston? or Euston Square?' which is a question I think has to be asked.
We established that she wanted the Victoria Line, whereupon I pointed her (as she did not seem overburdened with luggage) towards the escalators.
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Yet another thing in that tiresomely ongoing series, Dept of Just Because You Haven't Heard Of A Thing, Doesn't Mean It Doesn't Or Didn't Exist. Though let's face it, Mark Lawson has serious form. Abie’s Irish Rose, which was performed on Broadway 2,327 times in the 1920s - is also a family comedy turning on theological crises, in which a Jewish boy falls for a Catholic girl. Written by Anne Nichols, one of a number of American female dramatists who flourished in a period when they were almost unknown in Britain.
Interwar British dramatists may not be my Mastermind special subject, but women writers of the period are, and without giving it much thought I can name at least 5 who had plays in the West End during the 1920s/30s: Cicely Hamilton, Marie Stopes (actually, I am not sure that in those days the Royal Court in Sloane Square would have counted as West End, but still, major London theatre, for her birth control play, Our Ostriches, not to mention her children's play, allegedly co-authored with her son Harry, Buckie's Bears, which I am under the impression became a bit of a Christmas season institution during the 1930s), GB Stern (her own The Man Who Pays The Piper besides dramatisations by other hands of her novels), Clemence Dane, and Dodie Smith. Codfish to Mr Lawson, stat. Not to mention, he does namecheck The Mousetrap but clearly is unacquainted with Dame Agatha's much longer career in theatre, dating back to the period in question. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2176240.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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