Gregory Bateson

An interesting recent Guardian article by Tim Parks on the anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his view of the arts and their possible effect on social life; I know nothing at all of Bateson, but his views are an interesting part of the background noise about what the arts might be made to do in mid-twentieth century Britain.

Auden's prose

Following on from an earlier post, another review of the third volume of Edward Mendelson's edition of Auden's prose, this time by Sean O'Brien, reflecting on the cultural distance now evident between Auden and our contemporary life.

Dallas Sweetman

I note the premiere this week of this new play by Sebastian Barry, reviving the commissioning of new plays by Canterbury Cathedral. The heyday of the Canterbury plays was between 1928 and the years immediately after the war; my own article on the first of these, John Masefield's The Coming of Christ, is forthcoming in Humanitas. The Journal of the George Bell Institute.
A preview has appeared in the Telegraph.
[October 10th: reviews in the Times, Observer, Guardian and Telegraph; overall conclusion: nice building, difficult acoustics.]

The Golden Generation

I note a new exhibition at the British Library on the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain's powers of theatre censorship in 1968; it is due to run until the end of November.
There was also a conference to coincide with the exhibition, marking the end of an AHRC-funded research project, details of which are available on the project website.