Inglese (testo di attualità)

ESAME DI STATO DI LICEO LINGUISTICO - 2003

Tema di: LINGUA STRANIERA

TESTO DI ATTUALITÀ – LINGUA INGLESE

(comprensione e produzione in lingua straniera)

Sir Peter Saunders – Shrewd producer of “The Mousetrap”

Although he was one of the more prolific theatrical impresarios of his era, Peter Saunders inevitably

became known for one production only, as he acknowledged wryly in the title of his 1972

autobiography,

The Mousetrap Man. Opening in 1952, in the age of austerity, with rationing still in force, Agatha

Christie’s

thriller The Mousetrap in 1971 became the world’s longest-running play and, although Saunders

sold the

5

rights to Stephen Waley-Cohen when he gave up active management and his Maiden Lane office in

the

Vaudeville Theatre (which he once owned), it runs on still at the St Martin’s Theatre in London.

There are

some who

would argue that the play, set as it is in an isolated, snowbound country house, with detective

dramas on the

“wireless” and with funny foreigners such as Mr. Paravicini among the guests, is actually a

paradigm of post-

10

war England, a tight little island forced to adapt to change (the house’s gallant owners, Giles and

Molly

Railton, have been forced by economics to turn it into an hotel). Saunders would have had none of

such

fanciful metaphorical theories. When asked the secret of its continuing success, he said, “It’s a

guessing

game, with suspense and comedy, and the whole family can enjoy it.”

For him, Agatha Christie provided just what the West End needed, good solid entertainment (he

presented

many of Christie’s plays). His early experience as journalist and as press-agent was an important

factor in the

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play’s development into a phenomenon; Saunders shrewdly capitalised on anything that might help

publicise

the show, including holding an annual party at the Savoy, always to lavish press coverage, to clock

up every

extra year of the run. He had never aimed to be an innovative producer. After education at Oundle

School,

near Peterborough, he briefly worked in films as a cameraman before Fleet Street experience and

Army

service during the Second World War, when he ended up as a Captain. Troop shows encouraged his

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managerial leanings and he presented his first West End production, Fly Away, Peter (St James’s),

not a great

success, in 1947. It was the eye- opening experience of touring Christie’s Black Coffee (1950) to

remarkable box-office

receipts that persuaded him to turn to more of her work. He enjoyed a moderate success with The

Hollow

(Fortune, 1951) before hitting paydirt when a young Richard Attenborough as Sgt Trotter and his

wife

Sheila Sim as Molly opened in The Mousetrap (originally at the Ambassador’s, 1952, and moving

next door

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to the St Martin’s some 22 years later). Saunders had another major Christie success with perhaps

her best

play, Witness for the Prosecution (Winter Garden, 1953), which he also co-produced on Broadway,

with

further money-makers from her pen following with Spider’s Web (Savoy, 1954) and Verdict

(Strand, 1958).

Thrillers and escapist light comedies were what Saunders enjoyed and understood best […]

Saunders also had a penchant for the light political comedies of William Douglas-Home, presenting

The

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Manor of Northstead (Duchess, 1954), The Reluctant Peer (Duchess, 1964) […]

But as theatrical tastes changed, Saunders stayed mostly resolutely entrenched in his own kind of

theatre,

concentrating on mild thrillers - Justice is a Woman (Vaudeville, 1966), comedies such as Ray

Cooney and

John Chapman’s Move Over Mrs. Markham (Vaudeville, 1971) or starpacked revivals including

Arsenic and

Old Lace (Vaudeville, 1966) with Sybil Thorndike, Athene Seyler and Richard Briers. Saunders

tried to

35

climb onto the 1970s musical-anthology bandwagon with a “tribute” (no creator credited) to the

impresario

he most admired, C.B. Cochran, but Cockie (Vaudeville, 1975) was a misbegotten enterprise, with

only the

sublime

Max Wall emerging with any glory […]. Saunders for a very large part of his entrepreneurial career

was

active in the Society of West End Theatre (Swet - now the Society of London Theatre) including

two stints as

its president, and was much admired by fellow - producers for his handling of business affairs. He

remained

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an unrepentant dinosaur in some ways - he always resisted any suggestion of offering tickets at

anything less

than full price for his productions - but for all his sometimes gruff and peppery manner he was

greatly

respected within the theatre industry and by many actors, while his staff- including Verity Hudson,

his