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Even more hilarious than the recent RSC advertisement in the Guardian for a managerial appointment to head up an internal department of 75 people was this week’s request by the Gate Theatre and Rupert Goold’s Headlong company for anyone out there with any good ideas to come forward immediately.

Help, they seem to be saying: we’re still in business, but we don’t really have any brilliant ideas about what we should be doing, can you help out? The two companies are seeking “a radical new approach to classic international drama” and the chosen proposal is promised a production at the Gate next year.

I thought of brushing up that little idea I had about King Lear on ice and sending it along. Then again, after Rent the Remix, I think we might be ready for a Hip Hop Henry V, an Acid House Agamemnon and a brutal new rock’n boogie version of The Boy Friend.
 
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There was an extremely enjoyable small party on Saturday night for the re-launch of Anthony Holden’s biography of Laurence Olivier, one of the best in a large field, by the small publisher Max Press.

Max Press herself, a glamorous 28 year-old publisher, not all that small, whose name is given to this enterprising imprint of Little Books Ltd, welcomed us to her Notting Hill eyrie where, from the balcony, we could see the whole of London laid out before us and fireworks shooting in all directions.

It was truly spectacular. As each cluster of rockets and kaleidoscopic conflagrations illumined the night sky, Tony “Golden” Holden proclaimed the top-hole show of the Battersea Park Olivier appreciation society, or the splendid efforts of the Alexandra Palace and Primrose Hill Larry lovers association.

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Why don’t more plays tackle religion? After all, it’s one of the burning issues of the day.

We have plays about sex. We have plays about politics. Rarely, however, do we see plays about religion. It’s the big unspoken subject of the British stage. I was reminded of this fact by an odd coincidence. Last month I went to see to Wyndham’s Theatre to see William Nicholson’s Shadowlands, one of the few modern plays to deal with faith and doubt. That same afternoon I’d also been interviewed for a Radio 4 programme about God dealing with the way He (or She) is represented in literature, art and drama. I was forced to admit that the devil not only has the best tunes, he also gets a lot more stage time than God.

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