... End Threepenny Opera, co-founded Theatre Workshop, and only abandoned the theatre to become a prime mover in the folk music revival. He left school in Salford at the height of the Depression. Suspect as the son of a well-known left-wing union activist, himself a member of the Young Communist League, he found jobs hard to get and even harder to hold. So, along with YCL friends who had been ...

... RENE ELVIN on some important new European opera books Operette A-Z. Otto Schneidereit (Henscheiverlag, Berlin, Histoue de Poverette en France. Florien Bruyas Emmanuel Vitte, Lyon). The operetta has so often been declared dead or dying that one might wonder that so many books about it keep being written, pub lished. bought, and presumably read. In fact, it is still very alive and kicking high; ...

... You Can Get There From Here Shirley Maclaine. (Bodley Head, G2.95). I nat immortal remark ot Dorothy Parker's she ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B wouid never do for Shirley Maclaine, except perhaps to serve as a reminder of what a complete opposite she is. Her god-given gift to entertain lives every bit as much in her writing as in her live presence in or out of the spotlight. ...

... They're Playing Our Song Max Wilk W. H. Allen, £3.50. Max Wilk's book which is really a collection of twenty-one interviews, confirms the suspicion that the words and music men of Broadway and Hollywood are the real professionals, the people who are sung but not sung about, the workers who sit down and write to order, often at short notice to satisfy the whim or the need of a producer, ...

... Underground Film Parker Tyler Pelican Books, 75p. The author of this book, as befits a man of 67, is not an uncritical admirer of underground movies willy-nilly, but a distinguished art and film critic who is able to place Andy Warhol and company in perspective, a perspective which stretches right back to Abel Gance and to Robert Wiene's masterpiece 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, made in ...

... For some reason I have a clear memory of the first time I saw George Melly, not as a singer but as an oddly camp young man wafting around a pub beergarden in Clapham which was the summer premises of one of those jazz clubs of the late forties and early fifties. It was only a few months later, when attending an early gig by the never- to-be-forgotten Mick Mulligan and his Magnolia Jazz ...

... DODIE SMITH recalls her childhood and early youth in Look Back With Love (Heine-mann, £3.50) with tenderness, charm and amusement. The story of her family life in Manchester, long before she made the trip to London which tually brought her fame and fortune as a playwright and novelist, is not only a personal reminiscence of considerable in terest but a recreation of a van ished world. ...

... Englander passes on his know-how UNTIL he retired five months ago, A. A. Englander (Tubby to all who knew and worked with him) was senior film cameraman for the BBC. Starting his career in films as a clapperboy and working his way through most of the British studios not to mention the Army matograph Corps he came to the BBC 24 years ago. Since 1952 his television credits read almost like ...

... Tchaikovsky: His Cife and Times, by Wilson Strutte (Midas , £6.50) Though not including a great deal of material that cannot be found in other biographies and studies of the composer. Wilson Strutte's short book, interestingly illustrated, pro vides a useful introduction to his work. Considerable attention is given to Tchaikovsky's complex mental make-up, which obviously- affected his music, ...

... American Ballet Theatre Text and Commentary by Charles Payne, with essays by Alicia Alonso, Erik Bruhn. Lucia Chase, Nora Kaye. A. Black. £20. CHARLES PAYNE has a long and intimate connection with American Ballet Theatre, first as editor of their programmes, then gradually being assimilated into various other aspects of managerial work. as ne is in contact with the com pany's archives, he is ...

... Kenneth McClellan on Irving Henry Irving and the Victorian Theatre, by Madeleine Bingham. Foreword bv John Gielgud. (Allen Unwin, £7.50). A really honest biography of an actor is a rarity. By the time the need for obliterative discretion has passed, so, all too often, has public interest in the subject. But the spell of Henry Irving has outlasted his life and the lives of those who saw him. My ...

... THERE are those who profess to find reference books dull things indeed, but having spent the first three years of my working life involved with them I realise thp skill, dedication and constant decision-making that goes into their preparation. One first has to understand that they are intended for reference, not reading. They are there when you want them, and few people in the arts and ...