Mr. Rose Goes to London

From London, where he is busy getting his Carmen Jones produced, Broadway’s Billy Rose last week sent Columnist Walter Winchell a report on everything from St. Paul’s to Piccadilly streetwalkers, but chiefly on the state of the theater.

“With practically no exceptions, every show is a sellout and they have twice as many shows currently playing as we have in New York. A theater ticket is one of the few things they can buy without ration points. Some shows are good, some are bad. It doesn’t seem to matter. The musicals that I have seen don’t come up to our standards, but they have a repertory company with Laurence Olivier as the moving spirit, which makes anything on Broadway look like a penny arcade. . . .

”Without exception the better managements here are all interested in Carmen Jones…. I think the show would run from one to three years here—not that that is much of a trick—everything runs here. To be a producer in London today you must know how to do just one thing —unlock the front door. . . .

“I saw a revival of the old play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, by Oscar Wilde. It had one lovely old joke. ‘There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of married women, but of course that’s something a married man knows nothing about.’ “