It was stated that, while the novel and the play were both pleasing intellectual exercises, the novel was inferior to the play inasmuch as it lacked the outward accidents of illusion, frequently inducing the reader to be outwitted in a shabby fashion and caused to experience a real concern for the fortunes of illusory characters. The play was consumed in a wholesome fashion by large masses in places of public resort; the novel was self-administered in private. The novel, in the hands of an unscrupulous writer, could be despotic. In reply to an enquiry, it was explained that a satisfactory novel should be a self-evident sham, which the reader could regulate at will the degree of credulity. It was undemocratic to compel characters to be uniformly good or bad or poor or rich. Each should be allowed a private life, self-determination and a decent standard of living. This would be for self-respect, contentment and better service. It would be incorrect to say that it would lead to chaos. Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another. The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet. The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before – usually said much better. A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature.

BRINSLEY: This is all my bum.

Artair does not think this is all my bum at all. He believes that theatre and novels are too often constrained by reality. He loves the idea that characters in a novel or a play have a life of their own and don’t have to submit to the author’s will. He believes that each life is several lives, and that the distinctions between myth and reality are too sharply drawn. The old Celtic myths – so called – contain deeper truths. One or two of the reviews of his work have suggested that he has lost control of his characters, but none of them has said that he did it deliberately. Actually in regional children’s theatre, you seldom get reviews, and those you do get are more guides to where to park the children on a rainy day than critical exercises.