Bio-degradable scandal .sx Curtain .sx by Michael Korda .sx Sheridan Morley .sx Michael Korda is an American publisher of considerable expertise and distinction whose own writings form an uneasy pattern over the past 20 years .sx His first titles , always followed by an exclamation mark , were yuppie handbooks for the 1970s :sx Power !sx was one .sx Success !sx the other .sx Then he wrote Charmed Lives , an admirable history of his own flamboyant , movie-mogul Uncle Alex , before inventing , in the middle 1980s , the 'bio-novel' .sx This grew out of Charmed Lives in that it chronicled the exotic life and career of his aunt , Merle Oberon , who was Sir Alex's discovery , mistress , wife and star , but it was never conceived as a biography .sx As a novel , Queenie conveniently freed Korda from any problems with factual accuracy or libel suits .sx Everybody knew Queenie was really Auntie Merle , in celluloid thin disguise , but nobody cared enough about her memory to object to her nephew's repackaging it .sx Now Queenie has spawned Curtain , Korda's latest bio-novel , and one presumably now making an only-ritual appearance in hardback before finding its natural home on the airport carrousels .sx But , British audiences are going to have rather more of a problem with it than with Queenie :sx for the principal characters of Curtain are blatantly and unmistakably 'inspired by' Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh .sx Several key episodes are meticulously modelled on sequences in their many biographies , from the catastrophic Romeo and Juliet tour of America through to Olivier's wartime seasons at the Vic , and the accusations by Kenneth Tynan that Larry was sacrificing his stage career to Viv's mental instability .sx The trouble with all of this is that Korda is excellently placed to separate Olivier fact from Olivier fiction :sx his uncle was their most frequent movie producer ( both were under contract to him ) , Korda junior was Olivier's American publisher , and edited the Anne Edwards biography by Vivien , which was the first to uncover her clinical depressions .sx It is indeed more than possible that Korda's central plot-hypothesis - that Olivier had a brief and guilt-ridden homosexual affair with Danny Kaye - can be sustained by a line or two in the Olivier autobiography where he wrote of " a passionate involvement with the one male with whom sexual dalliance has not been loathsome to contemplate .sx " .sx But is this book , a few months after Olivier's death , really what his widow and children , or indeed Vivien Leigh's surviving daughter , best deserve by way of a publishing memorial from a writer whose family have made more than a little money out of the Oliviers over the years ?sx Especially when elements of truth are couched in a plot of such melodrama ( a suicide and a murder and a knighthood all in the last couple of pages ) that not even Korda senior would have dared film it ?sx This is grave-robbery of an especially unpleasant nature , a tacky little tale given spurious interest and credibility by the mixing of undeniable fact into a pudding of pure fiction .sx What Korda has written may well be the manuscript he would have yearned to receive from Olivier by way of autobiography , but that doesn't guarantee any of its authenticity .sx You have only to compare the way Olivier's dead peers , Richardson and Rattigan ( all safely beyond libel ) appear in the book with the carefully gloved treatment given to Gielgud and others still around , to realise the extent of the opportunism employed here by a writer and publisher who once knew more than a little about the boundaries of good taste .sx Korda is fast becoming the Bret Easton Ellis of the nostalgia trade .sx Announcing a poor state of health .sx Radio Waves .sx Paul Donovan .sx Radio 5 has just finished a series of programmes called Hard Times .sx This was not a serialisation of Charles Dickens's novel for GCSE pupils , but a week-long look at poverty in today's Britain .sx Homelessness , ill-health , debt , divorce , mortgage arrears , old folk dying from the cold each winter :sx the grim catalogue of social breakdown mounted as the week wore on .sx The Topical peg for this was the publication last month of a European commission report which claimed that Britain was the poorest , or second poorest , or seventh poorest country ( depending on which index you chose ) in the European Community , and that the proportion of this country's 'poor' relative to the whole population rose markedly in the years of Thatcherite ascendancy between 1980 and 1985 .sx You would hardly have learned from Radio 5's week , however , that far from being a document handed down on tablets of stone and accepted by all , the report was in fact roundly rejected by the British government .sx Nicholas Scott , social security minister , said its authors were talking about " inequality , not poverty " .sx ( One idiosyncratic feature of the report was that it based its comparisons on household spending , not income , thus departing from the standard practice of its predecessors .sx ) .sx Such complexities did not blunt the thrust of Radio 5's series of specially tailored programmes , which was that poverty has reached crisis level and the gulf between rich and poor is widening fast .sx " The whole idea of there being a floor through which you can't fall has gone , " said Carey Oppenheim of the Child Poverty Action Group on Tuesday's edition of Sound Advice .sx " The idea that our patients can 'knit themselves woolly hats and buy healthy food' , in the words of one previous minister , just doesn't apply , " said an inner-city doctor from Bristol on Thursday's edition of The Health Show .sx " Our patients don't have the ability to choose .sx If you're stuck in a high-rise block with three children and no father figure around , you can't actually make the choice to go out and buy yourself healthy food , and perhaps your cigarette is your only way of relieving the tension .sx " .sx His comments followed a lengthy monologue by another GP , Dr David Widgery , who practises in London's East End .sx " After 40 years of slowly trying to build a welfare state and 10 years of trying rather more rapidly to replace it with a social market , poverty is widespread and growing , and with it ill-health , " he said .sx Was there nobody who argued from the opposite perspective ?sx Not quite , but they were in a tiny minority .sx On the fourth day , the Department of Social Security said that none of its ministers had been invited to contribute to any of the programmes , which seems a remarkable omission for a politically sensitive subject , especially in what may turn out to be election year .sx Shortly after that Radio 5 approached the DSS to see if the benefits minister , Michael Jack , was available for Friday's studio debate which wrapped up the week .sx Hard Times began on Monday on Johnnie Walker's show , This Family Business .sx A sociology professor from Brunel University , David Marsland , argued that the welfare state discouraged individual initiative and did not target those in real need with sufficient precision , and that the confusion of poverty and inequality was a deliberate ploy by the Left .sx He was outnumbered by spokesmen from both the Child Poverty Action Group and Family Policy Studies Centre , who criticised both him and supposed government inaction .sx The next morning's Sound Advice contained much sensible guidance from people in Citizen's Advice Bureaux on managing your money and " prioritising " on low incomes .sx It was enlivened by a man who rang in and explained how he lived on a diet which seemed to consist mainly of porridge and pitted apples , which he bought for 10p/lb .sx He had no car , no TV , avoided meat , used his library , bought books for a few pence each at his local charity shops , and sounded like one of life's natural broadcasters .sx But there were also the usual campaigners , including the academic Peter Townsend , vice-president of the Fabian Society .sx He popped up again on The Health Show , talking about the dangers of damp concrete tower blocks .sx Wednesday's edition of This Family Business dealt with poverty as a cause of stress in the family , and we heard that divorce is at its highest among the low-paid .sx It was followed by Education Matters , on cutbacks .sx The message of the week , rammed home repeatedly , was that poverty is growing and can only be averted with a caring , compassionate government of the sort we do not have .sx There were times when it sounded like a party political broadcast .sx Caroline Elliot , chief producer in the continuing education department and the executive who oversaw the week , denies any propagandist intent .sx " Our object was not to give anyone a political soapbox but to dispense advice to those on a low income or no income .sx We did ask the education minister , Tim Eggar , to contribute to the item on nursery education on Education Matters , but he turned us down , so we got a Conservative councillor instead .sx We have tried to balance the partisan voices .sx " .sx Somehow , it didn't always sound like that .sx It takes 17 to tango but fewer to flamenco .sx David Dougill on the fiery Tango Argentino and a half-hearted Night in Seville .sx Tango Argentino , the music , song and dance show which opened at the Aldwych Theatre last week , has toured the world since it was first staged in 1983 , but missed out on an intended British visit some years ago because of that unfortunate episode , the Falklands conflict .sx Now that all is lovey-dovey again , Claudio Segovia's and Hector Orezzoli's production , which might be described as a high-class cabaret , has at last arrived , amid a blaze of publicity about tangomania to which it doesn't fully live up , although the show has its delights and the first night audience went mad .sx I don't doubt it will be a big success .sx The only decor is a starry sky and the tiered podium for the orchestra , who are visible throughout , behind dancers and singers - as is right enough , since the band's contribution is vital , non-stop and quite brilliant .sx What seems curious is that such marvellous music is produced by 11 players with consistently glum expressions .sx Luis Stazo , the leader and one of the four bandoneonists ( accordionists ) with his put upon face , is the image of Les Dawson .sx The piano and strings have much to do , but it's the hard work and energetically played bandoneon that gives tango music its breathy , heady , yearning flavour .sx As to the 'soul' of tango , there's plenty of it in the solo spots , for the four singers of a certain age , one of whom , Maria Gra n-tilde a , has been called " Tango's Judy Garland " , and the likeness is indeed striking .sx A notable feature of this company is that it includes many artists who have made their names on the tango circuit in independent careers , some of them quite long ones - and this goes for the dancers , too .sx While one of the younger men , Luis Pereyra , with his sultry looks and slicked-down black hair , is astonishingly like the youthful Serge Lifar of Diaghilev's company in the 1920s , others in the troupe are middle-aged and portly - but nonetheless stylish , even endearing in their dancing .sx The guest artists , Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves , have danced together for 40 years :sx she , with short-cropped hair and fringed black dress , is a Latin-American Zizi Jeanmaire ; he partners her with the imperturbable , no , implacable air of a head waiter at the Ritz .sx The tango was born a century ago , from many influences , in the slums and bordellos of Buenos Aires ; its dancers then were pimps and prostitutes and their clients ; its main theme , of course , was sex .sx Graduating to theatres and cabarets , and getting refined in the process , the dance enjoyed a famous tea-room craze .sx What Tango Argentino offers - with the leggy women in glamorous split skirts and plunging backlines , the men suavely suited and hatted - is chiefly elegant , polished , sophisticated dancing .sx Only one number , in which the tail-coated man partners a girl dressed as Mata Hari , represents the caricature Come Dancing style of tango .sx But in each of the duets , the sexual element has become stereotyped , the woman submitting at the climax in predictable bent-kneed , bent-backed or straddled poses .sx The single item which tries for more , Milonguita , with its slight plot about a girl seduced by a ruffian and eventually stabbed , is fairly awful .sx