Mudcatters have been singing the praises of Fawlty Towers (quite right too), and Jeanie mentioned how stagey they were. Further, two of the most popular tv formats are sitcoms and soaps, which are, interestingly, the two most stage-like ones.

So why don't we have plays on telly?

We have films and we have dramas, and the dramas are all actually films - they have best boys, location managers and the other paraphenalia of films, as tho' all tv directors want to be Hollywood people. But where are Mercer, Pinter, Ayckbourne, Sophocles, Adamov, Miller, Mamet, Feydeau, Ibsen, Hare, Shaw, Griffiths, Kane andall the other playwrights living and not-so-living.

I used to love watching them yonks ago. One of the greatest pluses was their unpredictability as compared especially with films, another was the greater freedom, a third the sheer imagination.

Plays used to be expensive to put on, and I can't believe films are cheap. So why no plays?