... WRITE STUFF We are all aware that actors are well down the list when it comes to the planning of a production. But a sometimes visible but not often regarded figure is that of the writer's agent, and the most significant of these shadowy figures for nearly 40 years was the formidable Margaret 'Peggy' Ramsay, who ruled the roost from her small office in Goodwin's Court, just off St Martin's ...

... FRESH FACTS Michael Meyer's three-volume life of Henrlk Ibsen can probably never be surpassed for scholarship and depth. But it is not an easy read even for those with more than a casual interest in the work of the great dramatist. More approachable is Robert r ciguion s one-volume, Out still formidably meaty, new biography (Richard Cohen Books, £25). Not that his book brings Ibsen to life ...

... Genius that transformed the American musical Oscar Hammerstein II and Alan Jay Lemer were almost the last representatives of the great creators of American musicals. This is not to say that great musicals are not being written today, but they are not being writ ten in the same way by people who did virtually nothing else, moving smoothly, in the case of Hammerstein, at least, from one show to ...

... Hope survives winds of change COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE It is encoraging to discover that all the contributors to Theatre In a Cold Climate (Amber Lane Press, £14.95. pbk) believe that there is a future for theatre. But naturally most of them share a sense of regret that things are not as they were, nor are they likely to be so again. Editors Vera Gottlieb and Colin Chambers have gathered ...

... LEADING STEPS borne months ago I speculated whether the illustrations to Lorna Pobjoy's little book on fit-ups were by the same Cynthia Morey I remember from the old D'Oyly Carte Company. Well, indeed they were, and now along comes a book of her own dealinc lareelv with her experiences in that same company. Inclined to Dance and Sing (Prospero Books, £7.99, pbk) is what one of her early ...

... REGAL DESIGNS The recent opening of The Lion King illustrated the astounding talent of Julie Taymor, the show's director and costume designer. Yet few people on this side of the Atlantic knew her name. Certainly she was not part of the Broadway establishment, that closely-knit band who between them seem to have been involved with many of the big musicals since the sixties. Taymor is in fact ...

... You could call Nell Gwyn the most famous actress of all time. Or the most notorious. She was certainly not the best, though in the mid-17th century she was one of the most popular. In these days we would probably call her a comedienne, for although she occasionally played a senous role, it was her humour and personality that drew the town. But then, of course, most people today think of her ...

... Movie mad composer who broke convention Compiled By PETER HEPPLE John Barry was the first of a new breed of British film composers--coming from the pop field rather than the classics. Back in the forties, when John Barry Prendergast was growing up, British films were usually scored by journeymen composers attached to the major studios excellent musicians who had almost fallen into the film ...

... Excitement of a great escape COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE It is remarkable how soon Rudolf Nureyev began to live up to the publicity of his escape to the West from the Soviet Union. The story of the escape was thrilling enough, and it is told excitingly in Diana Solway's mammoth biography Nureyev: His Ufe (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £25) how his parents begged him to return when he took his ...

... JAZZ STORY Though it may have only a peripheral involvement with showbusi ness, Buddy BoMen and the Last Days of Stofyvllle (Cassell, £25) is an absorbing piece of social history about the background of early jazz. It is written by Danny Barker, the New Orleans guitarist who began his career in his native city when still in his teens, and ended it as a valued member of the rhythm sections of ...

... THE PERILS OF FAME Though I myself did not care greatly for the stage, screen or radio work of Lucan and McShane, there is no doubt that they were enormously popular for more than 30 years. They were certainly the only Irish comedy act to make a lasting impression in England, possibly because Arthur Lucan was English himself, bom Arthur Towle at Sibsey, near Boston, Lincolnshire, and had ...

... LAUGHTER LINES Mike Craig (pictured below) has reached Volume Three in his Look Back with Laughter series and shows no sign of running out of wonderful variety comedians about whom to write with knowledge and affection. He is the greatest enthusiast for comedy I know, with the possible exception of Barry Cryer, and for those who saw them these vaudevillians, most of whom rose to fame through ...