[{"node":{"title":"Boyd086","Collections":"Boyd Letters","Contributor":"Boyd Estate","Coverage":"1977 Dec 10th","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Wednesday, March 16, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Boyd086","Item Description":"Letter","Keywords":"O'Malley, Lyric","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/boyd086","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Boyd086_1.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeff28 Rosetta Avenue\nBelfast 7,\nNorthern Ireland\n10th December 1977\n\nTo: The Editor,\n'The Listener'\nBBC Publications,\n35 Marylebone High Street,\nLondon WIM 4AA\n\nFor favour of publication\n\nSir,\n\nIn your issue of 24th November I read with interest - and appreciation\nMr. Elsom's article on the Belfast Festival. As a dramatist and\nex BBC producer in Northern Ireland for twenty-five years, and as\nhonorary director and literary advisor of the Lyric Theatre, I\nshould likce to comment on two sentences with reference to this\ntheatre.\n\nThe Lyric theatre (I quote Mr. Elsom) 'has the reputation in some\nquarters of being orientated towards the Republicans'.  'In some\nquarters' seems unnecessarily vague. Could Mr. Elsom be more\nexplicit? If he could, I should be most grateful.\n\nAgain, Mary O'Malley is referred to as 'sometimes regarded as\nBelfast's Lilian Baylis and sometimes as a confounded nuisance'.\nAs an Irish writer I should prefer to have Mary O'Malley compared\nwith Lady Gregory; but this comparison is fair enough, What is\nnot fair, however, is the 'confounded nuisance'. Does the petulance\nspring from the same anonymous 'quarters' whose political ineptitude\nis more than equalled by their artistic turpitude? Once more I\nseek illumination.\n\nHowever, there should now, at last, be great rejoicing in these\n'quarters' that so misrepresent Mary O'Malley's achievement.\nAfter a quarter of a century of strenuously idealistic and successful\nartistic activity in Belfast she has now left this city; and her\nmonument is the Lyric theatre whose achievement, particularly in\nthe last decade, speaks for itself. As for Mary O'Malley herself,\nmay I adapt a sentence of Sam Beckett: 'Adieu Mary, to whom we owe\nso much, share so much, and care so much'. The 'quarters' which\nwill approve of this judgment are all those who have benefited\nfrom the work of the Lyric Theatre.\n\nYours etc.\n\n(John Boyd)\n","Type":"Text"}}]