18.3.1976

Went to see “The Merchant of Venice” this afternoon, with Moira Redmond, Ronald Leigh-Hunt and Peter (Poufta) Wynegard......at Brid Spa!!! Wot, Shakespeare in Brid? Yes, and a first rte performance at that. It was the first play of His that I’ve seen live on the stage, but I do not like the “Merchant of Venice” much – it’s crummy – which, notwithstanding, did not make me think any the less of the performance. About 200 female philistines were present and broke the taboo of sniggering and tittering (girls don’t laugh) at the few deadly serious moments.

After watching Schneider’s bitter indictment of the Yank involvement in Vietnam(People’s Republic of Now!) I felt like dropping enough incendiary on the USA to make Hell look like a garden bonfire. “Hearts and Minds” employed rhetoric and irony in a manner that would be hard to better in the field of documentary. Little wonder it was given an Oscar and suppressed by the Child Murderers – I mean America. He showed me that decent Americans do exist – no, not just a myth – and that many thousands were against the War. In USA there are 1800 “citizens” to every Communist. Down with America!!