Quote of the Day

“I think we have a very British problem here. The British don’t like confessing that they do anything well. But I go to the theatre three times a week, and there is not a capital in the world that offers as much good theatre as London. If something is not paying its way and is second-rate, I can see a point in cutting it. But it makes me mad to think of cutting first-rate work. The theatre makes a lot of money for the Treasury, provides a lot of employment and seems very central to our society.”

-Peter Hall, on the latest UK "austerity measures."

Hall--the director who founded the Royal Shakespeare company over 50 years ago and then ruled the National for 15 peak years in the 70s and 80s--marks his 80th birthday this week and, as Charles Spencer notes, to mark the occasion, "he will be made a freeman of the City of London, which gives him the right to drive his sheep over London Bridge."