The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers Vol II: 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  I don’t know what one can do with it. When – in peacetime, I mean – they first started broadcasting alternative programmes, I hoped they meant to make them really different in quality – a sort of junior and advanced grade, so to speak; but it all withered away into nothing. But I believe this would be the right thing to do. A “popular” programme, much what it is now, though perhaps so directed as to encourage people to look for something more satisfying; and a “specialised” programme, in which the performers and speakers could treat their work seriously, addressing only those who were genuinely interested in the subject and already knew something about it. In this programme one would aim for at least the standards of the University Extension Lecture, and pay no attention to criticisms from “Man in the Street” and “Suburban Housewife” and the log-rollers of the penny-press – except to tell them that if they wanted popular chat they could get it on the popular wave-length. One would then hope for serious reviewing from the respectable dailies and weeklies and from the professional men interested in the subject. Similarly, if people said that “Mourning Becomes Electra”9 was too “heavy” for the tired stockbroker, one would reply firmly that it wasn’t meant for him, and that he should leave that wave-length severely alone as he already leaves the bookshelves of the British Museum, and then it wouldn’t hurt him. The same with music. But one would have to be absolutely firm and consistent about this policy, and never mix the wave-lengths. It is disconcerting for the stockbroker to find Einstein on Relativity intruding on Musical Comedy and Beethoven bursting in on Vic Oliver.10 I know the theory is that the stockbroker, having accidentally found himself switching in to Beethoven may become so absorbed that he remains to be educated – but in practice he merely switches off again with a loud snort of fury. Whereas, I daresay, if you urged him to avoid wave-length 349 like the plague, he would tune in to it out of sheer curiosity. Of course, one would have to explain exactly what one meant to do, and stick to it. It’s the wavering from one policy to another that does the damage.

  What makes one weep is that the B.B.C. has such a grand opportunity for doing the good, uncommercial stuff, because it is state-supported. It could do the sort of thing one always wants from a National Theatre, but which the commercial theatre can’t do for lack of security. Boult has grasped the possibilities of this on the musical side; and with a wave-length of his own to play with could do still more, without bothering about the people who tot up the number of hours given to “classical” music in the general programme, as compared with the hours consecrated to jazz and Variety. I’m not at all sure that the B.B.C. couldn’t, on these lines, actually run a National Theatre, as it now runs the Queen’s Hall concerts.11 I mean, if the State could be persuaded to take the theatre seriously enough to finance the overheads, the State-Theatre-and-B.B.C. body could run its permanent stock company, giving public performances in the theatre (with occasional broadcasts from the theatre) and also running the radio drama with the same company, thus making full use of the actors’ time and getting good value out of them. The actors to be, of course, on regular salaries under a three years’ contract. As things are, the B.B.C. grossly over-pays its actors, as the actors are the first to acknowledge. Their attitude is: “Of course, the B.B.C. is money for jam – otherwise one wouldn’t do it, because one can’t take it seriously. But you don’t have to work – only read things through after a few sketchy rehearsals and draw your money. But any of us would far rather do something worth doing, if only we didn’t need the pennies so badly.” What’s more, they would cheerfully work harder for less pay, if the pay was regular and the work interesting – but they demand, and get, the high fees for B.B.C. work, because they despise it so that they wouldn’t touch it for less. The authors, on the other hand, are so grossly underpaid that the serious ones can’t be bothered to do things for the B.B.C. unless they get the free hand which makes the thing worth while to them as artists.

  Forgive my rambling on – giving you something to read in bed, as you might say – but the possibilities are all there, and so big that it seems a pity they should go to waste in this ramshackle way. Government Boards have an absolute genius for elaborately wrong organization – I don’t know how they do it. Their institutions are a perfect example of the materialist’s universe, formed by the random tumbling about of atoms according to the Principle of Least Action. They seem to have no Directed Purposes at all. There’s a terrific appearance of Activity – again like the materialist’s universe – the atoms rush round and collide madly and never have any time to spare; but where they are going they never think of asking. They make me feel like Lady Macbeth: “Infirm of purpose – give me the daggers!”12 An old army man13 said to me sourly the other day that he attributed Wavell’s14 success in Libya to the fact that he was a very long way from Whitehall, and that instructions might easily fail, in some unaccountable way, to reach him. The B.B.C. is less fortunately placed.

  Well, anyway, we’ll try to get a new start on this show. I’ve asked my agent, this time, to get the form of contract so definite in black and white that nobody can misunderstand it. It’s characteristic that there is no real awareness in the B.B.C. mind that forms of contract exist, apart from the little thing they send out when one is going to speak one’s bit – nothing, I mean, that governs them when they are commissioning the actual work, but we’ll have it clear this time that you are the person who has to approve the play, and that I and the producer have our usual theatrical rights, and that no third party can put spanners into the works. With Gielgud, of course, I know there would be no misunderstanding on the principle of the thing, and if we disagreed we could do it in a nice, gritty, technical way, with enjoyment and mutual respect.

  By the way, though I didn’t bother to go into this with Miss Jenkin, I have taken some pains, though she might not think it, to ascertain what “the” elementary-school-child15 of eleven may be expected to understand. As it happens, we have an evacuee elementary [-school] teacher in the house, and I consulted him on the subject. He said there was nothing in the play that his kids wouldn’t be able to understand on their heads, even if it was only read aloud to them – and that the mystical bits would be no more difficult for them than for the average adult. He added that, in his experience, there were only two things one could be sure the average small boy would enjoy – one was mystery and the other was cruelty – a grim thought, but I know what he means. I also consulted a friend16 who is English mistress in a big girls’ school17 – and her opinion was that you couldn’t pontificate about “the” school-child at all, but she was sure that many of the children would really feel the questions Balthazar asks about the riddle of fear and poverty and all that, because of the war, and bombing, and one thing and another. I don’t believe there’s no such a person18 as “the” school-child, and I don’t think one should talk about “the” elementary-school-child as if he was something odd and inferior; I wouldn’t expect him to understand Noel Coward, because Coward’s plays deal only with a very restricted range of human experience. But what is meant by this unchristian distinction between the elementary and the secondary in the sphere of religious apprehension?

  I hope both you and the Director of Programmes19 will soon have recovered. The sooner the B.B.C. is removed from Bristol the better. And Manchester. What you want is a quiet place in the country, with an underground cable!

  Yours, etc.,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 The Malvern Conference, presided over by Archbishop Temple, was called to consider what role the Church should play in social reconstruction after the war. D. L. S. opened the second session on 8 January with a paper entitled “The Church’s Responsibility”.

  2 An amusing parody of the teaching of history by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman (Methuen, 1930). It was adapted for the stage, with words by Reginald Arkell and music by Alfred Reynolds. A London West-End success, the show is still performed.

  3 i.e. of removing the plays from Children’s Hour.

  4 Si
r Adrian Boult (1889–1983), conductor.

  5 Sir Hugh Percy Allen (1869–1946), conductor and musical administrator. He was conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir, of which D. L. S. was a member. In 1918 he was appointed Director of the Royal College of Music.

  6 The London Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1904, the B.B.C. Orchestra in 1930.

  7 His mother was Kate Terry Lewis (1844–1924).

  8 i.e. He That Should Come.

  9 A play by Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953), a re-working of Aeschylus’ Oresteia in the context of the American Civil War.

  10 Vic Oliver (1898–1964), film and stage entertainer, who married Sarah, daughter of Sir Winston Churchill.

  11 Conducted by Sir Henry Wood (1869–1944). The Queen’s Hall, in Langham Place, London, was destroyed by bombs in May 1941. The famous Promenade Concerts which took place there were later continued in the Royal Albert Hall.

  12 Lady Macbeth’s words to her husband, Act II, scene 2.

  13 Possibly D. L. S.’ husband, Major Atherton Fleming, who had served in World War I.

  14 Field-Marshal Lord Wavell (1883–1950), British army officer, and leading figure in World War II. He defeated the Italians in E. Africa and liberated Ethiopia.

  15 The elementary school, now termed primary, provides teaching for children from 5 to 11 years of age.

  16 Marjorie Barber.

  17 South Hampstead High School.

  18 Echoing the double negative in the phrase, “I don’t believe there’s no sich person”, in which Betsey Prig casts doubt on the existence of Sarah Gamp’s mythical friend in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, chapter 49.

  19 Mr B. E. Nicolls, who had been injured in an air-raid.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO F. BLIGH BOND1

  17 January 1941

  Dear Mr. Bligh Bond,

  Thank you very much for your letter. If the News Agency that reported the Malvern Conference had reported honestly what my speech was about you would have seen that it was directly centred about the whole question of intellectual integrity. It is, however, practically impossible to get reporters to pay any attention to any matter to which they cannot attach some kind of sensational interest.2 I believe that all the speeches made at the Conference will be published in full before long and if you get hold of the volume you will find that I did not neglect the important point you raise.

  It was very nice to hear from you again after all this long time. Have you had any further communications from the other side of the “Gate of Remembrance”?3

  With kindest regards and all good wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 Yet another voice from the past. F. Bligh Bond, F.R.I.B.A. (1864–1945). See The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899–1936, letters dated 11 July and 2 August 1917.

  2 See her article “How Free is the Press?”, Unpopular Opinions, Gollancz, 1946, pp. 129–130.

  3 A reference to Mr Bligh Bond’s interest in psychical research.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO THE REV. ERIC FENN

  The B.B.C.

  Bristol

  21 January 1941

  Dear Mr. Fenn,

  Many thanks for your letter. I will do my best to get out a synopsis,1 provided you clearly understand that this is a kind of thing I do very badly and that I seldom stick to the synopsis! Will you ask the contract people to remember to get in touch not with me but with my agents, Miss Nancy Pearn, Messrs. Pearn, Pollinger and Higham, 39/40 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C.1. I say this every time and every time they write to me.

  May I take this opportunity of passing on to you an interesting criticism made by an outsider to a friend of mine. This woman complains that the brand of Religion emanating from the B.B.C. is much more theist than Christian. She says it is all concerned with God the Father and not with God the Son, and that God the Father is presented too much in the aspect of a divine dictator managing things from above. I was interested in this, because, as you may remember, I ventured to mumble the same sort of criticism to Canon Cockin when we were discussing that other series of Broadcast talks. As it comes from a quite independent source you may feel that there is possibly something in the criticism. My own feeling is – as I have mentioned before on various occasions – that we are still fighting the Arian heresy2 and that we are inclined to divide the Substance rather in the manner of Dr. Pearks (if that is his name), (I mean John Hadam, who rose up so passionately on the first evening of the Conference), and leave people with the impression that there is somebody called God and a subsequent, inferior, but more sympathetic person called the Son of God, who had nothing to do with creating the world, and whose part in running it is rather that of a foreman of the works sadly put upon by the management. Possibly this has something to do with the “neutrality” and confusion of “Religions behind the Nations”.3

  Yours very sincerely,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 Of a talk entitled “The Religions Behind the Nations”. See letter to Val Gielgud, 24 February 1941, note 1.

  2 See letter to Father Kelly, 4 October 1937, note 2.

  3 See letter to Val Gielgud, 24 February 1941, note 1.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO EDWARD HULTON1

  28 January 1941

  Dear Mr. Hulton,

  Thank you for your letter and prospectus of the 1941 Committee. I am, of course, always interested in any effort towards reconstruction, and there are some details in your scheme to which I should, naturally, assent. But I could not ally myself with it, because I know it to be based upon the wrong assumptions – upon ideas which are not merely false, but already dead and discredited.

  Here are all the nineteenth-century liberal fallacies that led the world into its present confusion – the “progressive” fallacy; the Utopian fallacy; above all, the economic fallacy; the schemes for the secure, prosperous, insured life, and the extension to the whole people of the delusions that have rotted the middle classes.

  Economic socialism is not the revolt against capitalism; it is the final form which capitalism takes in the desperate effort to stave off collapse. We must not go on thinking in terms of the last generation but one; we shall have to be far more drastic than that.

  That is why I am very dubious of attempts to “define our aims” – because any such definition is liable to be couched in outmoded frames of thought, by men who do not grasp how far the real leaders of thought have moved on. I won’t ask you to grapple with Reinhold Niebuhr and the great Christian thinkers, who got there before the secular socialists started. The others are catching up; Peter Drucker1 has issued his warning on the negative side; and Lewis Mumford, in his Faith for Living,2 published today by Seeker, sees clearly the way things are going.

  Also, as a purely practical point, I think that if we start now to put out a lot of ideological propaganda, it will be automatically discredited as propaganda. Propaganda, like every other vice or virtue, destroys itself by its own inward corruption; and the public hawking of rival New Jerusalems has pretty well reached the point of dissolution.

  I won’t go further into all this now. Perhaps some day we may get an opportunity to discuss the matter.

  Yours very truly,

  [D. L. S.]

  1 (Sir) Edward Hulton (1906–1988), founder of Hulton Press, proprietor of Picture Post, author of The New Age, 1943.

  1 Author of The End of Economic Man, recommended in Begin Here, under “Some Books to Read”, where it is described by D. L. S. as “the most interesting and original book I have read recently. It deals with the failure of the economic state to provide man with a satisfactory and reasonable world to live in. Incidentally, it offers a really intelligible explanation of that very puzzling thing, the working of totalitarian economics”.

  2 Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)

  B
y February 1941 Dr James Welch had succeeded in freeing the plays on the life of Christ from the control of the Children’s Hour Department and Val Gielgud had agreed to produce them. Though they were to be broadcast on an adult network, the listening time would be suitable for children and it was understood that D. L. S. would bear them in mind. It is apparent from her letters and also from the first few plays that she continued to do so.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO VAL GIELGUD

  24 February 1941

  Dear Val,

  If I hadn’t been so stupefied with flu, I’d have written before to say Thank God you’d consented to produce the Life of Christ plays I’m trying to write for Dr. Welch. (It did occur to me that I’d look an awful ass if you walked out and refused to have anything to do with them or me, after the way I’d been roaring that over He That Should Come everybody had behaved like perfect gents, and never anything in the nature of words passed between us – handing myself out certificates of good conduct in your name, so to speak! I’m sure the Bristol people think I’m possessed of a devil, but honestly I began by being as good as gold; only somehow we didn’t seem to be talking the same language. And then God got sort of dragged into it, which is always so tiresome; it’s easier if one just treats plays as plays and contracts as contracts and leaves God to run His own end of the show.)

  Look, which days are you likely to be in Town? I was so sorry I couldn’t come up last week, but I was still all wobbly and peculiar. But I should like to have a talk about this show, because it bristles with difficulties – more than any of them realise. I mean, it’s difficult if one is trying to make the thing theatre, and not just scripture lessons in dialogue. That’s why I thank God you’re going to do it, because then it will be produced as plays; I heard a bit of a Children’s Hour thing about Absalom the other day which sounded as if everybody was in the pulpit (miaou! miaou!). Have they shown you the script of the first play, or given you any idea about the rest of the series? I did write several explanatory letters to Derek McCulloch about it, but it would be easier to go into it by word of mouth. I’ve got to be in London on the 5th. to do a bit of religious twaddle on the air,1 and I shall be passing through again on the following Monday. Or I could run up practically any day you were going to be there, if you would send me a line. I’ve only done the one play2 so far, having become rather discouraged; but I will now begin to encourage myself again.