... Television By Desift n. Bodley Head. 4 guineas. THIS book-- written by Richard Levin, Head of BBC-tv design since 1953-- claims to be the first work to cover in detail the whole theory of television design. It has many lavish illustrations. Sixteen pages in full colour which show production design would appear to be propaganda for the BBC's TV colour system. As the BBC were first with TV ...

... Television and films clear and simple The Living Screen. Roger Manvell. Harrap. 15*. THIS is a readable basic book presenting the principal facts about television and films. Roger Manvell sees them as sharing a common factor--a moving picture with sound. From this idea he goes on to discuss them in separate chapters pointing out in a simple but effective way the vital differences be tween ...

... Not On Your Telly! by Peter Bull. Peter Davies. 16/-. TELEVISION, we are so often reminded by despairing sociologists and syrupy hucksters, is now a national institution-- a part of the British Way of Life. As such it makes a very large target for biting shafts of satire. and actor Peter Bull's first novel. Not On Your Telly scores a rollicking bull's-eye. It success fully pokes hearty fun at ...

... The best of two popular programmes MANY viewers must have wished they had a permanent record of the fascinating conversations that have been a feature of BBCs Monitor programme for so long. Now the matter has been put right. An anthology of some outstanding con versations culled from this programme of the arts has been published.* Personalities featured in the book include Henry Moore, Shelagh ...

... A life of Robeson THE life of one of the striking men of his time is told in Edwin P. Hoyt's Paul Robeson published by Cassell at thirty shillings. It is a story of struggle and triumph, of the world acclaim of a singer with a most beautiful voicc who gave a new meaning to Negro spirituals for modern audiences. It concerns an actor of considerable stature who played Othello in London and ...

... Magnificent Guitry SACHA GUITRY was magnificent: in his gesture to life which made him take whatever of the world he fancied as his oyster; in his theatrical flourish; in his glittering talent; in his rich friendships and the love affairs that continued until his death, when he was worn out and ill in his seventies; in his passion as a collector of works of art and rare manuscripts. The ...

... Micheal and Oscar THE story of Micheal MacLiammoir's interest in Oscar Wilde, which began with naive curiosity when he was a boy and culminated in his one-man production The Importance of Being Oscar, is told with a flourish and a command which remind one ol this hne actor in the theatre, in his new book, An Oscar of No Importance, pub lished by Heinemann at thirty- five shillings. When ...

... Handsome theatre history 'T'HE STRENGTH of the mimetic instinct in man has ensured the continuance of theatre from its early development from a communal act of worship by the breakaway innovations of Thespis, leading to our generally accepted idea of it as an entertainment involving an audience emotionally but not physically. This underground stream, proving man's need for theatre, is ...

... The theatre today in Sweden THE work of Swedish actors and directors is known to us almost entirely through films, or from an occasional visit to the World Theatre Season at the Aldwych, so the Swedish Institute's little handbook Swedish Theatre offers an enlightening study of a theatre system which, in many ways, gives cause for envy. Three writers deal with different aspects of ...

... The violence of The Untouchables THE third volume of Mr. Eric Barnouw's history of American broadcasting, published last week, covers the period from 1953 to the present day and puts the emphasis on the medium's effect on public issues and its imperial role in furthering American policies. While obviously written for an Amercan readership people working in British television will be ...

... DAVID CAMPTON has performed a useful and fascinating service in giving us Three Gothic Plays (J Garnet Miller £2.70). They consist of Frankenstein, based on the Mary Shelley story; Usher, from tne story Dy tagar Alien Koe; ana Carmilla, based on the Sheridan Le Fanu work. AJI the plays have beeen produced at the Library Theatre. Scarborough. They merit a wider audience, capturing as ...

... AT £6.75 a copy. American Popular Song: the Great Innovators 1900-1950, published by Oxford University Press, is not the kind of book for impulse buying, but no one who is seriously interested in popular songs including the singers of them should be without it. A very personal combination of history, musical primer and refer ence book, it is written by Alec Wilder, himself a composer of dis ...