THE WELL-BRED SNEERS THAT WOULD STIFLE TALENT .sx . by BERNARD LEVIN .sx LONG , long ago , Mr. Noel Coward wrote an autobiography called " Present Indicative .sx " In Part Five he is invited to a house-party , where he meets some of the bright young people of the time .sx 'Their shirts and flannels were yellow and well used against which mine seemed too newly white , too immaculately moulded from musical comedy .sx Their socks , thick and carelessly wrinkled round their ankles , so unlike mine of too thin silk , caught up by intricate suspenders .sx Their conversation , too , struck a traditional note in my ears .sx I seemed to know what they were going to say long before they said it .sx I sensed in their fledgling jokes and light , unsubtle badinage a certain quality of youthfulness that I had never known .sx And although I was the same age , if not younger than many of them , I felt suddenly old , over-experienced and quite definitely out of the picture .sx ' No change .sx THAT was in 1922 , and Mr. Coward hasn't changed a bit .sx For this last couple of weeks he has been shooting off his predictably pursed mouth on the British theatre of today , in the Sunday Times .sx And Mr. Coward is still obsessed by the immensely important fact that other people do not dress exactly as he does .sx He still feels old and over-experienced .sx He still has the air of resentful superiority to more successful people .sx And he is still terribly , terribly , definitely out of the picture .sx In fact , the only advance- and that a slight one- is that he seems to have stopped writing sentences with no verbs in them .sx Now a man who was too old in 1922 can hardly be expected to have much idea of what is going on in 1961 .sx And from Mr. Coward's petulant , bewildered , inaccurate , and shabby attack on the playwrights and players of today anyone foolish enough to trust him as a guide to the current theatrical scene would get a quite lunatic idea of what was going on in it .sx Success .sx THEY would not learn , for instance , that our stages are fuller of good stuff , and our auditoriums of enthusiastic audiences , than for many years .sx They would have no idea that the current British theatrical renaissance is having an effect far beyond the West End of London , so that Broadway is heavily influenced by the highly successful plays of today that it has imported from Britain .sx They would never discover that our writers and players are exciting as well as excited , that they speak in tones of passion and belief and deep , proud faith .sx They would not be told that the technical accomplishment displayed by some of these members of our New Wave is astonishing in its range and completeness .sx Above all , they would never , never know that the New Wave- and it is the one thing that Mr. Coward can no more forgive than he can understand- is supremely successful , or that his own latest offering to Britain's ungrateful stage " Waiting in the " ) is being withdrawn shortly , having failed , as they say in the profession , to attract an audience .sx So nice .sx YET it is Mr. Coward- too old nearly 40 years ago , mark you- who offers himself as the man to lead the poor , stumbling audiences out of the theatrical dark and into the bright , brave noonday where it is always perfect anyone-for-tennis weather , and where nothing as vulgar and squalid as a stove is ever mentioned , but where lots of nice , jolly , fun-giving adultery- to the immense , brittle amusement of The Master- is .sx I think it is time that the case for the British theatre of today was made , and made loud and clear .sx Hitherto it has had nothing but its talent and its success to speak for it against the well-bred sneers ( getting a little tight around the jaw-muscles by now ) of those whom the New Wave has been washing higher and drier up the beach .sx It is ridiculous , to begin with , to speak in the same breath of such vastly diverse talents and outlooks as those of John Osborne , Robert Bolt , Arnold Wesker , John Mortimer , Shelagh Delaney , John Arden , N. F. Simpson , Harold Pinter , Lionel Bart , Peter Shaffer , Willis Hall .sx They write about a gigantic range of different people , classes , and situations .sx Mr. Bolt in " A Man for All Seasons , " took us to the Court of Henry =8 , and in " The Tiger and the Horse " to an Oxford college .sx In the one , a dark , rich portrait of a saint wrestling with his conscience ; in the other , an agonisingly brilliant study of a half-man who grows whole under the impact of tragedy .sx Exquisite .sx MR. WESKER , in his exquisite trilogy , ranges from the pre-war East End of London to the post-war Norfolk , from the semi-literate old Jewish immigrants to the intense and musical young Ronnie , from the dying of the old to the rebirth of the young .sx Mr. Shaffer , in his mercilessly observed " Five Finger Exercise , " and Mr. Mortimer , in his " The Wrong Side of the Park , " explored the hearts of characters middle-class enough to satisfy even Mr. Coward .sx From Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Simpson we have come to expect wit , style and elegance- three things that the false prophets of decay try to tell us have disappeared from our stages .sx And Mr. Simpson's lunatic logic has a freshness , a lightness about it that would make " Waiting in the Wings " seem bad even if it weren't .sx From Miss Delaney we get the authentic accents of the young ; and from Mr. Bart we get a large number of very good tunes , which some more traditional quarters have found hard to come by lately .sx In short , from them all we get a huge , bursting cornucopia of every kind of writing , every kind of plot , every kind of setting , every kind of character .sx Belief .sx AND to all this theatrical richness , the poor darling dodos can only squeak " kitchen sink " and " dustbin " drama .sx In fact , only one play in the last few years has had a dustbin in it , and that was by an Irishman who writes in French .sx Only one has a kitchen sink in it , and that one- Mr. Wesker's- was the one which above all proclaimed its faith in beauty , goodness , and truth , and turned savagely to rend squalor and those who perpetuate it .sx Which brings me to what I think is the clue- the common factor shared by many of our younger playwrights , and the element which above all produces uncomprehending rage in Mr. Coward .sx In a single word , it is Belief .sx Poets without Appointments .sx by PETER CHAMBERS .sx AT the top of 14 uncarpeted stairs in a Notting Hill mews lives Christopher Logue , poet .sx " Come up and have a drink , " he yelled out of the window .sx I went up and lay down .sx This was obligatory , because Logue owns one typewriter , 500 books , and almost no furniture .sx I lay on the bed .sx Logue lay on the floor .sx The only chair in the room was occupied by Burns Singer , a Scottish poet who chain-smoked cigarettes made out of loose tobacco , and remarked from time to time :sx " Do ye not find the whisky in London terrible ?sx " Nobody seems to care about any modern poet nowadays except John Betjeman , who writes agreeably in praise of buttered toast and railway stations , and became a best seller almost By Appointment after Princess Margaret said she liked his verse .sx But what are the other fellows up to ?sx How do they live ?sx I got some interesting answers from Logue and Singer , and later from an American , Theodore Roethke , who has actually made poetry pay .sx Money .sx CHRISTOPHER LOGUE is a dark , narrow , energetic man of 34 .sx If he were an actor , I would type-cast him as Shakespeare's Iago .sx He has published half a dozen books of poetry and achieved a wider reputation when he wrote the lyrics for the Royal Court Theatre musical " The Lily-White Boys .sx " " I actually made quite good money then , " said Logue .sx " For the eight weeks the show ran I earned +85 a week .sx But that represented six months' work , don't forget .sx Average it out and you see I was really getting less than a waiter .sx " Noisy .sx A CURRENT book of poetry , " Songs , " has earned Logue +100 .sx He was paid exactly that for one article in the American teenage magazine Mademoiselle .sx Christopher Logue writes fierce , noisy poems about war , love , and Logue .sx Son of a Southampton civil servant , he was brought up by Jesuits .sx " I now believe in the total abolition of private property , " he said .sx He got up off the floor , rattled some coal into the stove , and lay down again .sx A gleam of gold shone in the front teeth of Burns Singer as he lit his fifth home-made cigarette .sx He said :sx " Of course , Christopher believes that propaganda and politics are part of poetry .sx " For me , it's different .sx It's almost like psychoanalysis .sx I'll do no work for weeks and then write solidly for 12 hours .sx I think what I'm really seeking all the time is the source of Original Sin in myself .sx " Logue leaped to his feet at this heresy and shouted :sx " Original Sin !sx What are you talking about ?sx " Logue looks like a man who would punch anybody on the nose .sx But then who could punch Burns Singer ?sx A mass of gold hair frames his face , he has the air of a spiritualised Viking whom the bigger men left at home when they set out in their long-prowed ships to raid England .sx Flames .sx " JIMMY " to his friends , Burns Singer is actually the son of a Glaswegian mother and a Jewish salesman from Manchester .sx I count him the most inflammable poet on the English scene , because the way he showers burning tobacco strands on his flossy gold beard he is bound to go up in flames one day .sx In love , he wrote :sx - I cannot see Smiles in another .sx And every tear I brush aside I find you hidden within it like a bride He wrote that for Marie , the woman he made his bride five years ago .sx She is a New York-born Negress with a Harley-street practice in psychotherapy .sx Dreamers only part of the time , poets show an acute interest in money , mainly because of the difficulty they have in laying their hands on it .sx Most magazines pay +10 10s .sx for a short poem , and the rates at the B.B.C. go down to 10d .sx a line for longer broadcast works .sx Poets write reviews and do journalism to make a living .sx " I'm never sloppy about money , " said Christopher Logue in a raging voice .sx " I want a car .sx I want to eat out in restaurants .sx You know who I'd like to be ?sx I'd like to be president of U.S. Steel !sx " Burns Singer , once a fish-chasing zoologist at Aberdeen Marine Laboratory , said :sx " I'd like to be Spyros K. Skouras .sx I just fancy the glamour of working in films .sx " Professor .sx THE world does not owe poets a living , but it pays more than a modest competence to Theodore Roethke ( pronounced ret-key ) , a great shambling American poet big as a house and earning enough money to live in one in smart Belgravia during his London visit .sx Dwarfing a glass of sherry with his big hand , 52-year-old Roethke told me :sx " My great year was 1958 , when I picked up +10,000 in various prizes , including an award from the Ford Foundation .sx " As a working Professor of English at the University of Washington , Seattle , I teach poetry for +4,500 a year .sx " But the amount he gets by actually writing poetry and getting it published is only about +1,000 a year .sx Journey .sx ROETHKE'S best man when he married , was W. H. Auden , who sang his songs for more than sixpence as the best-known British poet of the 1930s .sx " But even Auden can't make a living just writing poetry , " said Roethke .sx " I doubt if anybody does , except maybe Robert Frost .sx " Let's face it , poems will never be as popular as football coupons , and what America offers is just bigger subsidies .sx As characters , poets range from rhyming layabouts to saintly travellers who have embarked on the greatest journey of all :sx the journey into the mind and spirit of man .sx