The fires of early spring have awakened moral fervor in the cultural apparatchiks of the Greater London Council. Under the leadership of Trotskyist Ken Livingstone, this august British soviet issued a grim ukase in March: henceforth no circus using trained animal acts shall set foot, perform, or otherwise expose itself on GLC-owned land. The circus ban is part of the British Left’s new and wild dedication to animal rights. This has inspired a fierce promise that Labor—if it wins the General Election—will prohibit the shooting of innocent pheasants, guinea fowl, quail, and pigeons, and eradicate the hunting of innocent foxes. Innocent fish, being a quarry of the proletariat, are not to be protected. Thus do comrades Foot, Benn, and Livingstone aspire with dumb animals to capture the voices of dumb voters.

The fact that politicians offer a much funnier show than anything to be found here upon a proper stage does say something about the quality of what most theatergoers are getting for their six to eight pounds. The épatantleft-wing fashion of the Seventies, though it threw up (no pun intended) a lot of incredibly dreary theater, did at least make for some noisy and sometimes amusing argument in the foyers and the media. Most of this has long since bubbled away into the fringe groups that play during the lunch hour in pubs or tour the British hinterland, now and then storming into town to perform for London audiences. Those who fancy this sort of