The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, Volume 2

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  Theatre, you see, is theatre. It is because these little committees of the Children’s Hour have no experience of the theatre that they never succeed in producing theatre, but only school lessons in dialogue. And I cannot do with it. Get me Val, and I will go to Bristol or Manchester or anywhere and work twenty hours a day, with the actors. But I must have a producer who is a professional producer and nothing else, and who can talk the language of the theatre.

  If there is any more nonsense, there is an end of the plays and the contract. I have stopped work on the series, and shall do no more till this business is put on a proper professional footing.

  I am sorry for all this, which is in no way your fault. You see now why I am disliked at the B.B.C., and why Gielgud enjoys (or so I am told) an extraordinary reputation as a Sayers-tamer! He knows his job; that is the secret of that, as of many other remarkable reputations.

  Yours very sincerely,

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  1 Val Gielgud wrote novels and plays, as well as an autobiography, Years of the Locust (London, Nicholson and Watson, 1947).

  2 Val Gielgud had a comparable respect for D. L. S. In Years of the Locust, p. 178, he wrote: “Miss Sayers is professional of the professionals. She can tolerate anything but the shoddy or the slapdash. Of all the authors I have known she has the clearest, and the most justifiable, view of the proper respective spheres of author and producer, and of their respective limitations. She is authoritative, brisk, and positive”.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO NANCY PEARN

  28 November 1940

  Dear Bun…

  I am in a state of complete fury, with which you will sympathize. The Children’s [Hour] plays I was doing for the B.B.C. have got held up owing to the usual violent struggle between myself and that body. As you know, the Director of Religion asked for the plays to be done in the Children’s Hour and asked me about a Producer. I said the only Producer – and indeed the only person at the B.B.C. – for whom I would give a groat – was Val Gielgud. Val, however, being at Manchester, they offered me instead Derek McCulloch, who is one of the Directors of the Children’s Hour. So far so good, and he and I exchanged very amicable letters about the play. Then he goes away on business and in bursts a female with a patronising and impertinent letter criticising my matter and begging me to improve my English style in places where “we” (whoever we are) felt it to be inadequate. I replied firmly to this gorgon that matter and style were my business, that I knew as well as “we” what children would be able to understand, though I should be willing to meet them on any point connected with the production, which in fact, I did.

  Now comes a letter from Mr. McCulloch, backing up his subordinate and having turned from Producer into a kind of Committee of Management! I replied to him that he cannot be both and must be one or the other; but that if he is going to be a producer he must accept my authority for everything which does not concern production. At the same time I wrote a ferocious letter to the poor religious bloke1 telling him what has happened to his play and saying that no professional writer of standing can get on with the B.B.C, just because of this frightful trail of the amateur smeared over all their departments!

  So you see we are having a lovely row. Next time you see Val, if he comes to London, tell him that he is still the only person at the B.B.C. who can tame the tigress Sayers and I have told Dr. Welch that if I could have Val I would readily go and be bombed at Bristol or Manchester and work twenty hours a day with the actors, but that I will not be come over by amateurs in the Books for the Bairns department.

  I know this will please you since you were instrumental in handing me over to Val and were pleased with the results.

  God blast these twirps!

  Yours affectionately,

  [D. L. S.]

  Dr Welch wrote, expressing dismay:

  When [Derek McCulloch] wrote to you as producer, you and he seemed to understand each other, and everything seemed to augur well for a happy and successful production. My own suggestion is that we should ignore the comments made on the play as a work of art, that you and McCulloch should pick up where you were before Miss Jenkin’s letter, and that McCulloch should make such comments as he wishes including those made by Miss Jenkin during the production itself.

  1 i.e. Dr James Welch.

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO DR JAMES WELCH

  30 November 1940

  Dear Dr. Welch,

  Thank you so much for your kind letter. I am sorry it did not reach me yesterday, before I wrote to you and to Mr. McCulloch, as it would have enabled me to take up a less autocratic position. In any case, I am very grateful to you for supporting me in the attempt to put over to the children a mystical approach to Christianity by means of poetic language, and also for the tacit confidence you place in my work by the assumption that, having called on a writer to do something, you will leave him to have a shot at it in his own way. These are, of course, the two points in dispute.

  I must say that, in the beginning of our correspondence, Mr. McCulloch seemed quite ready to go the whole way with me as regards the former point, quoting the expression: “Preach to the Sixth Form, and let the others pick up what they can”. So much so, that I said to him – rather as a joke – that if you complained that I was writing over the heads of the eight-year-olds I should rely on him to fight my battle with your department! The next thing was the letter from Miss Jenkin, written as from a committee of the Children’s Hour, requiring me to make six alterations. Two of these concerned precisely the “mystical” passages, on the grounds that they could tell me what would appeal to their audience. I replied that I must be the judge of my approach to the audience, and gave good reason for thinking that children were not incapable of appreciating strange and beautiful words, even if they could not take the whole thing in with their intelligence. Two of the others informed me that “we” the committee did not approve of the “modern idiom” that I was using in places. I replied that it was not their business to criticise my idiom – as indeed it is not, since if I have any reputation as a writer, it is for my ability to handle idiom. (Incidentally, it is by the use of modern idiom that I have from time to time been able to galvanise the public into the realization that events in the Bible took place in times very like our own, and were concerned with real people.) If, in rehearsal, I hear that something I have written doesn’t sound right, it is my duty and pleasure to alter it; but I really cannot allow that I am to write to the instructions of a B.B.C. committee. If they want that sort of thing, they must get plays written by their own staff, and not by writers of standing in letters and the theatre. The other two alterations demanded concerned production; this was legitimate (though they should have been requested by the producer and not by the department). I replied by at once making one of the alterations – though on my own lines and not in the way they suggested; and by explaining that the other would have to be settled in the course of rehearsal, for reasons which I gave; viz: that this was a matter which primarily concerned the actor.

  Mr. McCulloch then wrote, supporting Miss Jenkin, and asking me to come down to Bristol immediately in order that they might persuade me that the Children’s Hour Department was a faithful mirror of its audience. I did not argue about this, but made it clear that, if he was going to produce this play, his business would be to mirror me, and not anything else; and that it was impossible for me to treat him at the same time as my producer and as the head of a department that undertook to teach me how to write. I also said bluntly that I considered Miss Jenkin’s letter an impertinence.

  The actual passages at issue may appear trivial; but I think you will understand that it would be quite impossible for me to write a series of plays, especially on so difficult and dangerous a subject, if my matter and style had to conform to the practice of a departmental committee. If any body of persons entrusts work to an outside
expert of standing, it is because precisely, they look to him to supply something outside their normal practice. In a case like this, there are three authorities to which an author must be ready to submit: (a) that of the Church, if it can allege and substantiate that the matter complained of is heretical or blasphemous; (b) that of the State, if it can show that the matter is likely to lead to open schism, a breach of the peace, or the disturbance of international relations (e.g. anything likely to involve a Governmental department such as the B.B.C. in difficulties with the Catholics, the Jews, the Mohammedans, or what not); (c) the producer, if he can show that the lines and effects cannot be managed by the actors and effects department, or cannot be done in the time allotted, and so forth. But this is for the producer only, in his capacity as producer, and not for a department; and it must be conveyed personally, in connection with the production, and not as the ukase1 of an editorial committee.

  I am not at all unreasonable about alterations. I have rewritten almost an entire act at the request of a very young actor, doing his first production; but on that occasion the approach was very different. The issue was one of sheer dramatic construction, not of ideas or language; it was proved to me in rehearsal that I had made a mistake; it was done in collaboration with the actors, who felt the weakness in their parts; and I made the alteration along my own lines when I had seen for myself what was wrong. But I was not required to submit my judgment.

  This kind of thing is the usual theatrical practice; and it is my experience that where the author knows his job, and the producer knows his job, and each will trust the other to know his job, all differences can be amicably settled. If anybody says, “The B.B.C. is not the theatre”, the answer is that, if they call in professional playwrights, then it is the theatre, and they must supply a professional theatrical production. Radio technique is not quite like that of the theatre; but there was here no question of radio technique, but only of style and subject-matter.

  As I said before, I am extremely sorry that this should have happened; and I think – though of course I do not know – that it is largely the result of applying Civil Service methods to the Arts; the same thing, in fact, which wrecked the propaganda side of the Ministry of Information. This happens when a department requires the outside authority to conform to its routine practice, and when it is thought necessary that every tactless error made by a subordinate must be backed up by the head of the department in order to secure solidarity. What happens, of course, is that the outsider, having nothing to lose and no axe to grind, walks out, leaving the department to reflect that it is useless to present ultimatums (ultimata?) unless one carries the guns!

  The brutal fact is this: that I consented to do these plays, representing about 100 pounds’ worth of my work apiece, for a derisory sum, merely because I so much liked the idea that I felt it would be a pleasure to do them. But if I cannot do them in my own way, it will no longer be a pleasure; and I may say that, even if the pay were adequate, I should still refuse to do them except along the lines which I feel to be artistically right. There is no money in the world that I would accept at the cost of surrendering my right of artistic judgment to the dictation of a committee – this is why dictators have to put artists in concentration camps.

  The worst of the trouble is that, whatever happens now, I shall be faced, in Mr. McCulloch, with a sulky producer, which is the most desperate thing that can happen to a playwright. Here, again, I am all right; I withdraw the play, break the contract, and proceed with the arrears of my other work. But you will have lost your series of plays, and it seems rather hard lines. That is why I am bothering you with two long letters, in the hope that you may be able to exert some pressure somewhere or other. I am sorry I cannot send you copies of all the correspondence; I have sent it to my agent. However, I have no doubt you can get it from the Children’s Hour people. You will see that everything was as harmonious as possible up to the moment of Miss Jenkin’s interference. My reply to her was not conciliatory, I admit; but I knew that I had come to the point where to cede an inch was to cede the whole territory.

  I apologise for adding my bombardment to that of Hitler; I’m afraid you have been having a stiff time lately.

  Yours very sincerely

  [Dorothy L. Sayers]

  Of course, all this is hanging up production. I doubt whether, under the best of circumstances, I should have been able to get the plays done at the rate of one production a fortnight. The first request was, I think, for twelve plays. Then they asked me how many I wanted to do. Now you suggest six. If I am to go on, I must know, because each play has to be written with reference to its place in the whole series. You couldn’t plan a series of sermons unless you knew whether your doctrine was to be cramped into a Lenten mission or spaced over the whole year!

  1 Arbitrary order (from Russian: imperial command).

  [24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex]

  TO NANCY PEARN

  2 December 1940

  Dear Bun …

  You will be entertained to hear that the B.B.C. have surrendered foot, horse and artillery! Dr. Welch rang up this afternoon saying he thought the best way would be to cancel the original arrangements for production and hand the whole thing over to Mr. Val Gielgud. I said with mild surprise that I had understood Mr. Val Gielgud was not procurable. He replied that in case of dire necessity heaven and earth would be moved to get hold of Mr. Gielgud and induce him to take over. I said that in these circumstances all would no doubt be well. So there you are, you see. In the meantime, production has been postponed, which is a great blessing, since as I gently pointed out to them, the writing of a play, if you write it properly, takes about two months and not two weeks as they seem to imagine. …

  24 Newland Street

  Witham

  Essex

  TO HER SON

  5 December 1940

  Dear John,

  No, I don’t think so – I really don’t know, but I fancy the conference is by invitation – bishops and parsons and people with official interests.1

  You needn’t think it odd that you should only hear of my professional activities in the papers. Nobody ever does otherwise. Why should they? It isn’t a personal matter. In fact, if anybody tries to make it so, I am quite unscrupulous in my efforts to choke them off! The last thing I should ever do is to send tickets or invitations to relations and friends.…

  I can’t altogether explain my violent dislike of personal interest, except that I connect it with the atmosphere of solicitude which surrounded me in childhood and from which I have been trying to rid myself ever since. So much so that I can’t be civil if I am told that I [am] missed when I am away or welcomed when I return, or that I ought to take care of my life because it is precious to other people. I should very much dislike being bombed, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be; I am no more important than anybody else. Solicitude only adds to the victim’s discomfort by embarrassing them with a sensation of guilt.

  I have always been sorry that I ever used my own name for my books or allowed my personality to become known at all, or ever appeared on a public platform. The fool newspaper public starts pushing one’s self into one’s work and exploiting interest in one’s personality, which is intolerable. It can’t be helped now, but it’s a pity. The grass should grow over the living as well as over the dead, and there should be no memorial except the work. I have just had to write a “character sketch” of a dead friend2 – a job that I hated and that one ought not to have to do. At least there are no lies in it, as there are in all the other obituary notices – the most silly and nauseating lie being the assertion that she and I were close friends at Oxford, where we never met.3 Why should I be dragged into it? You may well ask. Because the blasted journalists thought that, since they knew nothing about her work, they could make their columns more spicy by connecting her with a “well-known personality”. It makes me sick. I have killed the lie, anyhow – which is the only excuse for the arti
cle.

  Let be, let be. Go on being interested in public affairs. That is needed. We have bottled up our lives into our own tics and our own emotions and let the res publica4 go from bad to worse. There is no love for the thing – only a general solicitude of a vague kind for nice people, and an indefinite general kindness that doesn’t like to think of anybody having to suffer. The best possible recipe for producing the greatest suffering for the greatest number.

  Yes – I suppose we shall have to deal with exams and things some time. But God knows there’s no money for anything these days. I am not making it as I did. The detective market – thank Heaven – has fallen off; I say, thank Heaven, because it was getting bad for people; encouraging them in the delusion that there was a nice, complete, simple, one-and-one-only solution to everything. There isn’t. There is a solution to murder mysteries only because the murder is made to be solved.

  I doubt, in any case, whether I shall be more than the one night at Malvern.

  Yours affectionately,

  D. L. S.

  1 John Anthony, then at school at Malvern College, had asked if he might attend the Malvern Conference at which his mother was invited to speak on 8 January. He had read in the newspaper that she would be speaking. The Conference was held at the College during vacation.

  2 Helen Simpson. D. L. S.’ “sketch” was published in The Fortnightly, January 1941.

  3 D. L. S. wrote: “I first met Helen de Guerry Simpson about ten years ago, when she was elected to membership of the Detection Club” and went on to express exasperation at the determination of journalists to maintain that they had been closely associated at Oxford.

  4 Latin: public affairs.

  On, 4 December Dr Welch wrote to D. L. S. referring to a telephone conversation they had had. It had proved impossible after all to engage Val Gielgud as a producer of the plays. Dr Welch hoped that despite her misgivings D. L. S. would accept Derek McCulloch as a producer. He said: