[Irving Wardle, theatre critic.] Autograph Letter Signed to Gerald Wynne-Rushton, giving advice on offering a play, with reference to a letter he has received from Emyr Humphreys, producer of BBC TV production of Saunders Lewis’s ‘Siwan’.

Wardle worked as Kenneth Tynan’s deputy on the Observer between 1959 and 1963. Wynne-Rushton had published a play titled ‘The Gull’s Way’ in 1930, and a book on the papacy for Catholic publishers Burns, Oates and Washburne two years later. 2pp, 4to. In fair condition, folded three times, with wear and loss along one fold line of the second leaf, resulting in loss of a few words of text. Signed ‘Irving Wardle’ and addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Rushton’, identified as G. W. Wynne-Rushton by associated correspondence. He does not feel that he can be of much help to Wynne-Rushton ‘in suggesting possible markets’ for his work. Regarding the 1960 BBC TV production of Saunders Lewis’s ‘Siwan’ he writes: ‘It so happened that by the same post that brought your letter, I received a note from Emyr Humphreys, the producer of SIWAN, in which he said how much difficulty he had encountered in getting the BBC to agree to a television production of a play so remote from the current idioms: had it not been an appropriate choice for St. David’s Day, the work might not have been seen at all.’ He suggests Wynne-Rushton try J. Roose-Evans, manager of the Hampstead Theatre Club, which staged the play of ‘Siwan’, and ‘might be interested in other historical pieces [...] And, of course, you can’t lose anything by sending scripts in to the script department of the BBC and independent networks in the normal way. And I wouldn’t ignore radio - they’re also hard up for material, and much less nervous about adverse ratings and, for that reason, freer in their choice of material, even when it doesn’t reflect what happens to be in fashion’.