RECALL OF TIME PAST


We live in age of constant change. This cliche is particularly true in the world of electronics, where today's must-have is tomorrow's old hat. Most of the exciting add-ons seem to me to be largely the result of nerds amusing themselves by seeing what new trick the box can be induced to perform, rather than arising from any deficiency they can supply.

And there is the tendency to confuse smooth technology with the need to have anything worthwhile to say. My experience of video games - very limited, gained from looking over younger shoulders - is that the images have become closer and closer to real time photography. This seems to me to have nothing to do with the value of what is being shown, which has no relation to any human sympathy, understanding, wit, articulateness, or any awareness of a world other than the non-existent virtual world in which so many young appear largely to live.


What is this extended approach march leading up to?


Only to this. As you know, I have an interest in the Victorian toy stage, which is a repository of a great deal of fascinating history which I shall be glad to expound to you any time you have an hour or two to spare. To the great majority this will seem the last asylum of the aging mind. Yet simply as an example of what was, and still may be, arrived at by the simplest of tools - in this case cardboard and paint - it is worth consideration. The greatest achievements of dramatic art are achieved by movements of men and material on a dusty stage, not by glossy video effects.


So here is a snatch of the world of the richly decorated theatres of the past, and the splendid effects that skilled technicians displayed in them, as recaptured in the cardboard world of 'penny plain and tuppence coloured'.