fashionable drama in Paris and London concerns itself almost
exclusively with adultery, the first choice fell on Lord Gorell,
who had for many years presided over the Divorce Court. Lord
Plymouth, who had been Chairman to the Shakespear Memorial
project (now merged in the Shakespear Memorial National Theatre)
was obviously marked out for selection; and it was generally
expected that the Lords Lytton and Esher, who had taken a
prominent part in the same movement, would have been added. This
expectation was not fulfilled. Instead, Lord Willoughby de Broke,
who had distinguished himself as an amateur actor, was selected
along with Lord Newton, whose special qualifications for the
Committee, if he had any, were unknown to the public. Finally
Lord Ribblesdale, the argute son of a Scotch mother, was thrown
in to make up for any shortcoming in intellectual subtlety that
might arise in the case of his younger colleagues; and this
completed the two teams.


THE COMMITTEE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE THEATRE

In England, thanks chiefly to the censorship, the theatre
is not respected. It is indulged and despised as a department of
what is politely called gaiety. It is therefore not surprising
that the majority of the Committee began by taking its work
uppishly and carelessly. When it discovered that the contemporary
drama, licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, included plays which
could be described only behind closed doors, and in the
discomfort which attends discussions of very nasty subjects
between men of widely different ages, it calmly put its own
convenience before its public duty by ruling that there should be