The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda.

I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.

Any part of the piggy Is quite all right with me Ham from Westphalia, ham from Parma Ham as lean as the Dalai Lama Ham from Virginia, ham from York, Trotters Sausages, hot roast pork. Crackling crisp for my teeth to grind on Bacon with or without the rind on Though humanitarian I'm not a vegetarian. I'm neither crank nor prude nor prig And though it may sound infra dig Any part of the darling pig Is perfectly fine with me.

I'll go and see anything so long as it amuses me, or moves me. If it doesn't do either I want to go home.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all.

There are bad times just around the corner, There are dark clouds travelling through the sky, And it's no good whining, About a silver lining, For we know from experience they won't roll by...