... 'Don't cast doubt on this basic need' SIR--Amongst the AGM reports in The Stage, April 16, you said that I proposed Equity set up its own self-financing casting service. In fact I did nothing of the sort. Equity cannot and must not involve itself in the process of casting. What I proposed was a union financed casting information service as practised in America. When I was a deputy with the ...

... A fitting award for those Aussie 'good' Neighbours S1K What a splendid idea of INick Scon, to have a Crap Awards ^M Presentation Ceremony, for 'iffy' television programmes. Without hesitation my nomination is for Neighbours it has ^H everything. Every young actor, budding writer, and aspiring producer, should be made to watch this amalgam of horror, just ^^1 to see how not to act, write or ...

... 'Don't forget the new faces' SIR -- I heartily agree with Stan Boardman (February 1 3). Live entertainment is waiting for the undertaker to move in, and the sad demise of television variety shows and the loss of Opportunity Knocks and New Faces is one of the mam reasons for the disappearance of the good old days of the big cabaret clubs. Although George Sawa and some of his col leagues have ...

... SIR Recently watching an old British film on Saturday afternoon television., I was yet again amazed, and appalled, to see the amount of smoking packed into 90 minutes. Admittedly, these films were made in pre-health-hazard days (in what my daughters, when younger, used to call the black-and-white world), but it's extraordinary how often a director directed and/or an actor chose, to light up ...

... 'Toughen up your act' Trials and tribulations in the run-up to this year's Equity Council election I SIR As Act for Equity is prepared to take the time and I expense of a full page of self-promotion in The Stage, it will I not, I am democratically sure, object to a casual scrutiny I of its assertions. I Act for Equity, we are told, was founded in 1976. I There was then a Labour Government, ...

... 'We're on course, are you?' SIR Whilst understanding the frus tration expressed by those interviewed by Ann FitzGerald for her Ethnic Arts in Birmingham article (June 4), the implication that training opportunities do not exist for West Midlands black and South Asian artists is quite mis leading. This summer, for example, the Birmingham National Dance Agency is running courses which directly ...

... SIR--Re: Colin A Wards' letter, November 12. I am a professional clown/childrens' entertainer age 28. I have been performing at childrens parties since 1986-- I do games, magic, juggling, play the piano, and clown routines. I have studied and trained in voice, movement, drama, improvisation, clowning, stage management at the City Lit, Wl also taken pan in a couple of pantomimes acting a lit ...

... Confused--they will be Equity election Equity election Equity election Equity election SIR,--As your front page of June 25 correctly reports, there are very serious questions now being raised over the status of the group that calls itself Act for Equity. Two items in the same issue show us why. On one page, we find a large adver tisement telling Equity members to vote for all the ...

... SIR, I am elad to hear that Colin Baker thinks all Act for Equity candi dates in the Council Elections are independent. I wonder if he read Jill Lamede's letter of the week previously? (in which she states that an AFE councillor was refused permission to nominate her candidature). I have known AFE councillors too afraid to speak out against their own leadership over deci sions in the past so ...

... Love, not money on the fringe SIR, Lester McGrath's comments on the rental fees of small fringe theatres (Fringe feel ing the pinch, October 29 are monstrously patronising and ill-informed. Most hurtful of all is McGrath's implication that managements of studio theatres arc lining their pockets at the expense of struggling actors. The truth is that this theatre, like most other fringe spaces, ...

... Demand for National pride in Scottish arts SIR--Scotland should have its own National Theatre which is unique and specific to Scotland because Scotland has several overlapping cultures which are unique and specific to Scotland, none of which is serviced by any preeminent Theatre of Excellence. None of our existing repertory companies per form Scottish plays consis tently. Why is it deemed ...

... Making a Welsh drama by Amising the point SIR,--Dedwydd Jones' letter (March 5) wanders from the point. I criticised London programme makers for failing to perceive Wales as anything but a one-poet/one play nation (the metropolitan cult of Dylan Thomas). Dedwydd Jones ignores the ques tion of Wales as a culture with many accomplished writers and criticises me for BBC2's forthcoming three- pan ...