Romanoff & Juliet...cont'd
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This was followed by further moralising in the local “Telegraph” editorial: |
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Fit for Children?
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THE pupils of the Pembroke Dock Grammar School present a play for the entertainment of pupils, parents and the general public. Anyone who cares to pay the price of admission is welcome to attend. The play selected by these young and enthusiastic amateur actors is “Romanoff and Juliet,” and when the news gets out and about the town that the school children are swearing like troopers, that some of the situations are “suggestive and doubtful,” a great many people start to wear frowns and long faces……..anyone who realises, that even “Lady Chatterley” is legally approved reading for school girls, must appreciate that, judging by the standards of today, the school play is really nothing amiss. But if anyone really believes that the standards accepted today are better than they were before the war, that’s a different matter. |
| Then the National press got hold of the story and we were treated to headlines like this in the Sunday tabloids: |
USTINOV UPROAR
Saucy school play brings protests from
two towns By Sunday Dispatch Reporter
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In this article the Reporter included lines like:
A girl stretched precociously on a divan. Two school friends kissed. And a couple of schoolboys were swearing like troopers. The grammar school was staging its annual play—produced by the Scripture master in the school hall before an audience of pupils, parents, and friends.
All except one of the cast in the three-act play were senior boys and girls, aged 16 to 18. The leading role of the general —the part Ustinov wrote for himself—was played by the producer, scripture teacher Mr. Stuart Shaw. “I see nothing improper in the play being put on by teenagers,” said 34-year-old Mr. Shaw. “ I chose it after seeing an Arts Council production.”
Mr. Trevor Roberts [Headmaster] has replied to the churches, telling them he thinks their attack is unjustified and ill-founded. He said “I believe it to be a perfectly suitable play for a school production and not improper or immoral in any way. The only swear words are at the beginning to help create the character of the common soldier.” There are stories that programme sellers [boys] boosted the play by calling it a “Lady Chatterley- style entertainment.
” Said Mr. Roberts: “All the programmes were sold by girls, and I am sure they wouldn’t have said that. The play was chosen and cast in August, long before the Lady Chatterley case was brought to court.” |
It is interesting in the context of the time that putting the Headmaster to the sword (‘Murder in the Cathedral’), carrying a severed head around on a spike (‘Branwen’) apparently brought no complaint. Even in Romanoff, teenagers carrying real rifles (they were not stage props but rifles borrowed from the Army at Llanion) was not questioned. What caused the furore was “bad language and cuddling.”
The following week, the local “Guardian” – ever a friend of the school - carried a long article
included in which were the following: |
FREE CHURCH COUNCIL
PROTEST
OVER SCHOOL PLAY
Yet Members Never Saw
“Romanoff and Juliet”!
WIDE LOCAL SUPPORT FOR PRODUCTION
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Chairman of the Free Church Council admitted that the criticisms were based solely on a press report (not the “Guardian’).
A “Guardian” representative who saw the production, described it as a tremendous success …..“ the audience loved every minute of it and after the Thursday and Friday performances the cast took several curtain calls.”
The “Guardian” also canvassed local opinion:
A member of the Free Church Council… absent from Friday’s meeting but he did see the play which has caused his colleagues so much upset…. told the “Guardian” on Monday: “I saw nothing offensive in ‘Romanoff and Juliet’ at all.”
Rev. J. B. Lewis, Vicar of Carew, whose two sons. John and Peter, were in the play, said:— “I hope the Grammar School goes on producing plays like this without taking notice of the criticisms. …At this rate we’ll be crossing Shakespeare off the list—not to mention text books supplied for the Welsh Joint Education Committee examination! |
A prominent Pembroke Dock businessman, who has a 13-year-old daughter at the Grammar School, dismissed the criticisms as “utterly ridiculous, the entire production was a credit to the school and the Borough.” A Pembroke businessman thought that the Free Church Council criticism was childish. “Anyone with the most elementary knowledge of the theatre would not bat an eyelid at ‘Romanoff and Juliet.’ Mr. E. Lloyd Williams, Headmaster of the Coronation School, observed: “In the present day it is important that drama like other arts has an important part to play in the life of senior pupils of any secondary school. ‘Romanoff and Juliet’ is a play dealing with contemporary problems. It has a moral and in my opinion it was a fine effort on the part of the pupils.”
Letters to the Press included the following: This, from Rene O’Bear, Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London:
“ROMANOFF AND JULIET” “Sir.—It is heartening to know that Roman Catholics and the Free Churches are united in a matter of such grave concern as the appalling and constant lowering of the standards of purity, modesty and integrity before the onslaughts of progressive materialism……”But from Mr Drysdale in Pembroke:
“Do It Again”
To the Editor
Sir,—May I say that I enjoyed the performance of Romanoff and Juliet, so severely
criticised recently…..In view of the controversy aroused |
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Continued from column bottom left |
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by this play it might be profitable
to produce it again and this would give its most vehement critics a chance to see it
and judge from a more knowledgeable viewpoint.”
All of us who had been connected with the play regarded all this stuff with glee – and
would willingly have done repeat performances. Mr Shaw and TC Roberts handled it well in
a quiet professional manner but I suspect both of them were seething underneath, and I
doubt that either of them thought for a moment that the morals of the pupils had been
corrupted by the play, they were probably well aware that some of the language that flew
round the boys playground and that various other, er…’extra-curricular activities’ would
make Romanoff and Juliet look distinctly ‘Enid Blyton.’ There were to be two further
broadsides:
In the local “Guardian”, the columnist who went by the name of ‘Factotum’, writing a column
called “You Might Agree”, had no time at all for the attitude of the Free Church Council.
Here are some extracts from his column:
The Pure in Mind….but how nimbly these Pembroke Puritans succeeded in achieving a dis-service to
their local Grammar School, its pupils and teachers! All because they are ever ready to
clutch to their over-righteous bosoms any bit of cheap dirt slinging and tittle tattle of
perverse innuendo, or the slightest suggestion that their Victorian tenets of rigid moral
conduct have been overlooked …
….what is the matter with these people? Have they nothing better to do than fasten on
to idle or ill-informed gossip and turn it into a religious crusade? Merely to gain ….the
adulation of their kind? And this at the expense of local youth and schoolmasters, who
because of the Puritans’ astonishingly fiery indignation made the headlines for the Sunday
newspapers which, surely members of the Pembroke Free Church Council NEVER
read.
“Shame”The ….dirty little storm created in the local teacup last week-end was turned into a
noxious mental drink for half the nation! ……
Obviously the Free Church Council had it in mind to let the world know that those vicious
words “damn” and “bloody” were actually SPOKEN by schoolboys on a school
platform in PEMBROKE. Are we now to fear that the morals of these young people
have been irrevocably perverted? Can they never, never become nice, clean-minded,
sweet-mouthed adults like the Fathers of the Free Church Council? Also, it is to be
feared that they are doomed to perpetual damnation; …… I have heard normally polite
schoolboys who would do nothing mean by a friend, a girl, parents or indeed anyone,
cuss like troopers in a rugby scrum. And it was not “stage language”!
Several young pupils ….. are “said” to have “confessed that they were embarrassed by
certain scenes” ….. Here is cause for wonder! As if these …. children had never …..
seen the “love-mush” on the silver screen? Have they not yet seen anything other than
….the Flower Pot Men on the telly? Have they not yet listened to the tear- drenched
death-gloom of a “pop” record called “Tell Laura I love her”?
….. I can’t tell the F.C.C. that I love them. I cry “shame” that they seek to denigrate
the local Grammar School and its masters. And “shame” again that they should doubt
the morals of the young folk who performed a difficult play with considerable ability.”
I think he should have told them straight and not beaten about the bush so! I can’t remember
if the Free Church Council responded to this, but Father Newman, head of the local
Catholic Church did. He was not pleased with ‘Factotum’, and had this to say:
“Factotum” Taken to Task
To the Editor
Sir,—That criticism of the Grammar School play on the lines of the Free Church
Council’s protest or others who thought it “unsuitable” would cause genuine concern
to the School Authorities and the producer few would doubt, and few who would not
sympathise with them. Good choice or bad (I did not see the play myself) none of the
critics has impugned their sincerity. Nor, has anyone gainsaid the Church Council’s
right and …duty to speak its mind on what it thought a moral issue; and no one has
doubted its sincerity ….with one appalling exception.
Fair Comment is one thing, vulgar abuse of those with whom you disagree is another,
and I feel obliged to protest against “Factotum’s” unjust and insulting attack on the
Free Churchmen.
….the public look to the Free Churchmen for moral leadership. Does he think that
those leaders should remain silent on what they regard as a moral issue lest somebody’s
feelings are hurt? Must they abdicate their position and calling and relinquish their followers
to the guidance of a “Factotum”? Must the most unworthy motives be ascribed
to them when they do speak, …..because it strikes “Factotum” as just a desire for
cheap sensationalism and publicity? “It was no more than that.” But any stick will
do—“merely to gain for themselves the adulation of their kind,” or they “seek to denigrate
the local Grammar School, etc., etc.”
Is “Factotum” being honest himself in opening his attack or as a journalist is he so ignorant
of the ways of his own profession that he really doesn’t know that the national
Press itself “lifts” items from the local Presses or works up sensationally the raw material
supplied by this latter or to use his own phrase, “the dirty little storm created in
the local tea-cup?”
He asks “What is the matter with these people,” but what is the matter with him?..... So
what makes him tick? It couldn’t be a violent animus towards them could it? “You
might agree.”
….But what is surely of greatest importance Sir, is that responsible bodies and individuals
should be free to express their views and to differ without being pilloried with
the cheapest abuse.
Yours, etc.,
MAURICE J. NEWMAN,
Catholic Rectory,
Pembroke Dock
After this things seemed to die down and the “storm in a teacup” was over. One wonders
whether the members of the Free Church Council regretted their stance, but I suspect not.
Neither do I think that Mr Shaw regretted choosing that particular play. The following year
he chose a play by Nicolai Gogol which contained a scene of on-stage drunkenness! But
that’s another story - and the Free Church Council never said a word.
Finally, if there are any other former pupils, or staff, who have additional, or different
memories of “Romanoff and Juliet”, please send them in.
Roger MacCallum, 1956—1964
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