On Thursday, January 17, 2008, at 08:46 PM, lapsedcat wrote:
> Yes please Dean, I'd like to see the letter.
>
27 September 1975
To the editor of The Times
Dear Sir,
There is something absurd about someone of my stature having to reply to
your radio critic's cheap contumely about my work in Just A Minute, but
pip-squeak circus ponies masquerading as thoroughbreds seem to be part
of the contemporary scene, and it is proper that someone should
distinguish between the braying and neighing. Your writer appears to be
confused. He says "we've all played Just A Minute in some form at a
party for an evening." This is news to me because I have not. He goes on
to tell us "and gruesome fun it was, because that's what it was meant
for". Indeed! It certainly leads us to question his definition of fun,
it seems to have more in common with Sacher-Massoch than Ian Messiter.
But if we take him at his word and accept that deliberately gruesome fun
is possible, what are we to make of his complaint, "we did not enjoy
ourselves"? Judging from his dolorous description of the programme, he
should have been having a ball. He has no conception of architecture
because he maintains that I was playing to the gallery all the time. The
Paris Studio has only one floor. Albeit, if he spoke metaphorically, and
meant that I was continually appealing to the commonality, he should
have said so plainly, and reported the fact that they found it amusing,
which is more than you can say about Mr Wade's column. There is little
excuse for him, he is a writer. The player in Just A Minute is a
speaker, and extempore at that. The difference between writing and
conversation has been described by Johnson thus: "Remotely we see
nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces... but once we have
passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced
with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded
with smoke." If your critic doesn't like the cottages, the obstructions
and the smoke, he should leave them to those who do. There are many of
them, they can be found in the audience at Just A Minute, they are the
reason for the transcription sales overseas, they can be heard in
Britain round that parish pump which Mr Wade professes so much to admire.
Yours faithfully
Kenneth Williams
What a brilliant man Kenneth was... coming up to 20 years since he took
his own life...