... had been rejected, and as though I had been discriminated against because of my speech. Is it becoming a criminal offence to speak Standard English? Susan Lea Tothill Street Ramsgate Kent ...

... Clayhanger, my very first television part. I had to play a scene, supposedly with Thelma, but she was off camera and as she didn't speak she didn't have to be there. As I couldn't see the person, I found it difficult to judge my voice level. Thelma quietly stepped ...

... another actor was telling a similar tale about her audition for a Midlands small-scale company, when she had been told: No one speaks like that nowadays. Well, of course they do. Actors of my generation, for a start. I had to smile. We have come full circle ...

... from Susan Lea (March 16, Letters, page 7) and John Samson (April 6, Letters, page 9). One is heartily sick of hearing cat-speak by which I mean 'how now brown cow' rhyming with 'meow', other adenoidal vowel sounds, adjectives being used where there should ...

... actors passing through drama schools stripped of their regional accents, their emotional range bottled up. Shakespeare did not speak with an RP accent. But so long as the debate on the skills of stage communication is conducted from positions of prejudice ...

... workshops. Does Harold Pinter have someone on his back saying: Harry baby, too many pauses, a little less tension, it's not speaking to me? I don't think so. Part of the problem is. that now anyone and every one thinks they can write I a play, they go on ...

... snarling class battle. Perhaps if this kind of use of class as a fashion trend disappeared, we might get people daring to speak clearly and distinctly without fearing for their image. B Cameron Goldsworth Park Woking Surrey ...

... Speech police made wrong arrest Here we go again. No sooner does anyone speak up for the oppressed Received Pronunciation than the establishment--the speech police--jumps on them and accuses them of being anti-dialect. But no one objects to dialect. Remember ...

... leaping onto the bandwagon of youth culture, there is no friendly generation gap to point the way. Adults all employ teen speak in the hope of getting through to the kids. Where, nowadays, is the judge who dares to say: Who are the Beatles? Where ...

... life and backgrounds to apply. All we are looking for is talent and we take no rights to works submitted. r Our track record speaks for itself: 87 per cent of TAPS writers commis sioned, rive feature films shot and many shorts made. In the past ten days ...

... also imagined a latter-day Shakespeare setting off from Stratford with Hamlet in his pocket. Hamlet contains more than 30 speaking parts It is the sort of play a modern manager would refuse to produce on the ground of expense, apart altogether from ...

... VAT is imposed on a commodity, the Govern ment is powerless to remove it. Gordon Brown confirmed this in his first Budget Speaking on the Conserva tive Party's imposition of VAT on fuel, he said: I'd like to remove it altogether, but it can't be done ...