The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 21

ARTS, PERSONAL 21 Tom Sutclrffe on the tedium and pin down torture of Birtwistle's Gawain Blight of the round table How a czar was born THE GUARDIAN Saturday June 1 1991 Hugh Hebert necessary half hour to act 1. And the excrutiating tedium turns to pin down torture when we discover that we have to endure an extra winter, a fifth season, before Gawain can get on with his quest for the Green Chapel. The problem is what happens on stage is dull. This isn't the only ritual here, of course. Doors open and shut with echoey thuds.

There are the threefold hunting and seduction rituals involving Gawain, Lady de Hautdesert and Bertilak in the second act (with beautiful lullaby music for Marie Angel's ululating Morgan). And then at the end the un arming of Gawain back at Arthur's court could allow an extra 25 minutes to be lopped. In Birtwistle's Orpheus one could feel a certain awful hypnotic obsession in the sheer excess of electronic means the use of mime and speech as well as song. The piece was a beached whale in operatic terms, and is quite unlikely ever to be performed again. But the sounds involved were massively striking.

Gawain is a more conventional opera, with few electronics and dependent on singing and stage action. It is brilliantly served by John Tomlinson's huge and penetrating account of the Green Knight (Bertilak), by Richard Greager's ringing Arthur, by Penelope Walmsley-Clark's authoritative Guinevere and Elizabeth Laurence's Janet Baker-like Lady. Tomlin- WHY IS Gawain, Harrison Birtwistle's latest opera, so boring compared to The Mask Of Orpheus with its endless (17 arched) electronic obstacle-course on the way to Euridice's redemption? Is the composer's music becoming less interesting? Or is his refusal to take account of the theatrical pacing of a narrative now less tolerable when something more than mere artistic self-indulgence is expected of approved masters of modern music? Birtwistle has always been obsessed by ritual repetitions in his stage-works, and repetition is indeed an essential element in musical composition. But dramatic repetition, the same text or the same action, is another matter. Nicholas Snowman in the programme claims Birtwistle is a natural dramatic composer because his musical language is well contrasted.

Yet the essence of theatre is timing. Birtwistle is as repetitively literal as the oath-taking rituals of a coronation or church service. In his Punch And Judy and Yan Tan Tethera, the ritual repetitions were certainly structural, but the musical variety was involving. In the new work, a masque of the seasons (an unwelcome homage to Maxwell Davies, complete with The Sixteen chanting occasionally evocative Latin motets at the back of the stage) adds an un How to get ahead in opera: Francois Le Roux as Gawain at Covent Garden the job, installed by the grey men fearful of radical reform. When Chernenko died too, Gorbachev moved with great speed, the help of the veteran Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and the fact that one of his key opponents, Shcher-bitsky, was in the US.

Somehow, the way these things happen in a well-run oligarchy, the urgently summoned plane was delayed; and delayed. News of Gorbachev's succession reached the party when they were still on the tarmac. Once aboard, it turned out that everybody was a great admirer of Comrade Mikhail after all. HAVING Nigel Havers bundled in bandages and latex leaves his claims to virtuosity in limbo. So A Perfect Hero (LWT) becomes less of another Battle of Britain, First of the Few, stiff upper moustache epic; more a film about wartime girls.

Bunty is the Number One girlfriend who shies away like a frightened mare when Hugh has been shot down and covered in his own crackling. This week having dropped poor, frazzled Hugh she hops into bed with his best friend Julian. Then there is Marge, from Hugh's Cambridge days, who turns up as the physiotherapist charged with getting his scar-locked hands moving again. What she doesn't want is to get them moving in the old Cambridge way. Meanwhile Hugh's sister Susan's husband is posted missing, and when she pours out her fears of loneliness to her mother, mum comes back with "You know, women take the life of the emotions far too seriously." Or, as the old advice went, lie back and think of England.

In this genre of nostalgic rip-off, why are we always expected to admire obsessive attention to period detail, but to swallow timeless improbabilities of character whole? Never mind the words, just get those props. Leaving the top tunic button undone was the symbol f-HOTOGRAPH: Bia COOPER hours of by and large heavily over-scored brass and percussion, I didn't care. Elgar Howarth conducts with scrupulous care. Often Birtwistle's music impresses, with his fertile imagination for colourful elemental sounds and giant slow-moving landscapes. But opera is about ideas carried by believable beings created through lyrical opportunities.

Gawain is theatrically and philosophically dead. etic source into a pretentious unrhymed mishmash, short of dramatic incident but full of abstractions and ominous hints of magic. "Arthur and Guinevere foxed by passion and fame at ease with their youth" sings Morgan le Fay in the first bars, and sets the clever-naive tone of the whole work. "Don't ask for the person you want me to be; I'm not that hero," sings Gawain, but it's not clear why, and frankly after three or less devoid of a serious epic theme. It is amusingly diverting, intended to entertain just as much as Arthur's court craves diversion.

The green coding is less heraldic, as in many Arthurian chivalry tales, than to suggest polarity between Christian, courtly ideals and the old submerged nature god, the country cycle of decay and rebirth. David Harsent, Birtwistle's librettist, has converted his po- NOTHING like a few well-engineered coincidences for giving a historical series a kick start In 1978, Comrade Brezhnev trundled off to Baku to present that city with the Order of Lenin. His route passed through Stavropol, where Mikhail Gorbachev was a local party boss. Andropov, head of the KGB, had taken a shine to Mikhail, and arranged for the train to stop. On this remote provincial railway station Brezhnev met with the three men who were, one after another, to succeed him: Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev.

Two months later Gorbachev was called to Moscow to be Agriculture Secretary. Gorby was launched on his high-flying phase. The Second Russian Revolution (BBC2) promises to be a fascinating series, produced by Norma Percy, about the Kremlin infighting of the Perestroika years. This taster has a heady mix of coincidence, conspiracy, corruption and cock-up, a subtle blend of researched fact and narrative conjecture. Kremlin insiders who have been pouring out their memoirs in the spirit of glasnost, appear on British screens to spill the borscht and boost the serial rights: Nikolai Ryzhkov, former Prime Minister: Yegor Liga- chev, powerful critic of Gorbachev in the early days; Viktor Grishin, former Moscow party boss; and with the most deliriously demonological story of the programme, Arkady Volsky, secretary to Andropov.

During his illness, Andropov dictated one of those exhaustive Kremlin speeches; he was not well enough to give it, so it was to be printed. After the main text had been passed, Andropov called Volsky in and dictated one last paragraph. In effect, this nominated Gorbachev as his successor. But when the printed version was circulated, Volsky saw with alarm that the final paragraph was missing. He rushed to una out what had happened.

The old guard heavies told him to keep his mouth shut When Andropov died, Chernenko got for Henry momentarily breaks down on "If I had a thousand you realise the old knight is forever haunted by his childlessness. Julian Glover's Henry is the third side of this complex emotional triangle and again there is a sense of long-range character-development. Seeing both plays, you realise that the austere Gor-donstoun headmaster-figure of Part One conceals a man racked by paternal and monarchial guilt: Mr Glover makes it blind-ingly clear that his deathbed anger at the prospect of a future England "sick with civil blows" stems from the realisation that he is the ultimate cause. He precisely embodies Auden's point that "the body politic of England catches an infection from its family physician." Not everything in Part Two is perfect. The eruption of Pistol Evan Roberts Hooray Michael Biilington at Stratford I HEDGED my bets when Adrian Noble's production of Henry IV Part One opened the new Stratford season.

Now Part Two has joined the repertory and, after seeing both plays in a single day, I am prepared to leap off the fence: this has matured into a magnificently rich achievement and marks a radical new approach to the staging of Shakespeare's Histories. Mr Noble and his designer, Bob Crowley, have adapted a style that is increasingly common in Obituary: Eugene Yesterday's weather Botanist bard of the Welsh mountains ff ireaDDSDin) amid dODoqsdodd son and Marie Angel command the stage with wicked relish, and get their words over. But although Di Trevis's staging (in a 1960s sub-RSC style) has plenty of expensive effects (lasers and a huge circle like a butcher's fly-repellent), there's less flim-flam to disguise the action's looseness. The original medieval source is a splendidly energetic, rather naughty, even comic poem full of anecdotal imagery and more out through Shallow's Gloucestershire orchard filled with white-masked bee-keepers who resemble deaths-heads. If Part One is about contrasting worlds, Part Two reminds us that Eng land is unified by the spectacle of national decline.

But Noble's strength is that he combines visual stylisation with psychological realism. Back in April I found Michael Maloney's Hal a rather shadowy figure but he has now grown into a watchful princeling desperate to pierce his father's emotional defences. In Part One he addresses his father like a nervous schoolboy with hands behind his back. But the great moment of revelation Birthdays Benny Rothman, (above) the Red rose of rambling, is 80 today and a good advertisement for the exercise, for 58 years separated his participation in the Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout on April 24, 1932 and in last October's "battle" for access to Snailsden Moor. Onwards and upwards.

Other birthdays today: Pat Boone, singer, actor, 57; Martin Brundle, Grand Prix racing driver, 32; Gemma Craven, actress, 41; Lord Deedes, former editor, Daily Telegraph, 78; Bruce George, MP, 49; Jean Lambert, Green Party representative at the European Parliament. 41; Bob Monkhouse, comedian, 63; Robert Powell, actor, 47; Jonathan Pryce, actor, 44; Gerald Scarfe, artist, 55; Nigel Short, chess player. Another Day June 1, 1808: Mr Phipps I dined with. Sir George Beaumont dwelt much upon the unfortunate situation of Poets com pared with that of Painters. He said that two of our principal Portrait Painters had got more money in the last Seven years than all the Poets in this country had obtained.

I mentioned that I had heard that Coleridge had spoken lightly of Homer; of Dr Johnson, Lady into the tavern becomes an excuse for some protracted Keystone Coppery. But there is a sense of a complete world on stage and of a company that bats all the way down. David Bradley's Shallow wonderfully combines physical frailty with the finicky precision of a bossy local magistrate. Philip Voss's Lord Chief Justice is not the usual stiff-backed prune but a man who treats Falstaff with the right amused condescension. And Joanne Pearce's Doll Tearsheet is a tart of unusual vigour.

It is, incredibly, 16 years since we saw these twin peaks of Shakespeare's genius on the main Stratford stage. In Mr Noble's fine production they become a deeply moving study of the inter-action between the demanding claims of kingship and the indissoluble ties of kinship. the rarer plants grow, he developed climbing skills of a high order and spent the second world war training the Commandos and the Lovat Scouts to climb. After the war he became the first Welshman to become an accredited mountain guide. The Rhos Quarry closed in 1953 and after a short spell as a forestry worker, Evan was taken on as the first National Nature Reserve warden of the newly-formed Nature Conservancy Council.

The botanical records he had kept meticulously for three decades still underpin that organisation's data-base. He worked for the NCC for 18 years, until his retirement (as Chief Warden for North Wales) in 1972. Honours were showered upon him: an honorary MSc from the University of Wales; the MBE in 1964; and, highest accolade of all, he was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards in 1975. His retirement gave him more time to pursue his botanical interest, often in company with his children and grandchildren, to whom he was devoted. There were jaunts to Pontresina in the Alps to find Eritrichium Nanum "King of the (On the way home Evan's chauffeur had to navigate without a map; Evan had filled the road atlas with pressed flower-heads of more common species.) There was even, well beyond the age of 70, a jaunt to Ireland on the back of his son Eon's motor-bike to find the Killarney Fern long since gone from its single recorded site in Snowdonia.

Evan's lecturing and leading to locations in the mountains continued into his eighties. Women students in particular flocked to him, and he delighted in their company. Stone blind in later life from glaucoma (he had been blind in one eye from birth), he still insisted on being led to the locations of his favourite plants to photograph them with an auto-focus cam era. Before he became completely blind, he was often to be seen, grandsons at his side, pushing a pram filled with camping gear along some remote road, still savouring the feel of the sun and the sweet smells on the wind. The local paper evocatively announced his death with the simple head- -line in Welsh.

"Mae Taid wedi mynd." Grandfather's gonei JhmPwrin Evan Roberts, bom June 15, 190 died May 15,1991 comes in Part Two when he begins to understand the cost of kingship: Mr Maloney apostrophises the crown as if it were an enemy "that had before my face murdered my father" uttering the last words with a heart-wrenching, accusatory cry. Mr Noble, in fact, makes you realise that the two plays might be sub-titled, after Turgenev, Fathers And Sons. If Hal is a son desperately seeking a father, Fal-staff, in Robert Stephens's breathtaking performance, becomes a man in search of a filial substitute. He grows superbly from the guileful charmer of Part One into a much more vicious, predatory figure in Part Two: Stephens unsentimentally becomes the sharp-toothed "old pike" prepared to snap at and devour his former crony, Shallow. But when Stephens PHOTOGRAPH: DENIS THORPE 26; Sir John Tooley, former General Director, Royal Opera House, 67; Sir Frank Whittle, OM, FRS, inventor of the jet engine, 84; Edward Woodward, actor, singer, 61.

Tomorrow: Algernon Asprey, artist designer, 79; Lord Boyd-Carpenter, former Conservative MP and minister, 83; Con-stantine, ex-King of Greece, 51; Alan Dobie, actor, 59; Mark Elder, music director, English National Opera, 44; Marvin Hamlisch, composer, 47; Sta-cey Keach, actor, 50; Sally Kellerman, actress, 54; Sir Peter Morrison, MP, 47; David Mudd, MP, 58; Lord Justice Slade, 64; Johnny Speight, writer, 71; Craig Stadler, golfer, 38; David Sum-berg, MP, 50; Charlie Watts, rock drummer, 50. Beaumont expressed her opinion of Dr Johnson as an Author, Sir George said That He had always disapproved the stile of Dr Johnson, but allowed that He had great power of mind. Lady Beaumont, (no doubt speaking from Coleridge) sd. that the age of Charles the Second was the period when the authors had the purest taste. The Farington Diary, vol (Hutchinson, 1925) the opera house: a rejection of realistic clutter in favour of a snare, lean neo-Expressiomsm.

In Part One this takes the form of a stark visual contrast between the grey court and the scarlet stew of Eastcheap. In Part Two, a very different play, the implication is that all England is afflicted by a creeping, melancholy sickness. This sense of national decay is here caught in two arresting images. At the end of the East-cheap tavern scene, with its talk of mortality, the sleepless, unshaven King Henry wanders into the action, instantly linking the high life with the low. And later, on his expiry, the King is borne Lourie lust worked out in a wooden plate-layer's shed among the shunted trucks under the steaming rain," of La Bete Hu-maine as described by Graham Greene.

Lourie provided the corridors and large rooms of the chateau in The Rules Of The Game, which gave Renoir long spaces through which he could move his camera freely. It was not as easy to recreate France in Hollywood, although Lourie managed to catch the atmosphere of 19th-century French provincial life in Diary Of A Chambermaid (1946) the large, detailed kitchen and the shadowy mansion. Lourie's last film for Renoir was The River (1951), shot in India. Renoir commented that everywhere one looked in India "was as though a designer of genius had conceived the setting of everyday life. Of course, one had to select, but Lourie knew how to do this.

He kept on presenting me with pictures which, although absolutely natural, seemed to have been composed." Actually, Lourie went around painting the trees of Bengal the shade of green he wanted. Lourie's work away from Renoir failed to have the same resonance, but he did design the effective Edwardian sets for Chaplin's Limelight (1952), and contributed to two of Sam Fuller's lurid, low-budget, high-pitched melodramas. As a director he concentrated exclusively on monster movies, such as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which boasted fantastic stop-motion effects from Ray Harryhausen. He set up his easel as far from Renoir as he possibly could. Ronald Bergan Eugene Lourie, born 1903: died May 25, 1991 remember a supper he cooked after a folk concert where Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger were fellow guests.

The casserole was rich and French; we all, on his instruction, used our bread to wipe our plates! Professor Laurence Kitchin writes: The magnificent Harry Ree also served on the committee of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society another example of his wide-reaching humanity. of fighter pilot status; undoing Hies in the nog is another matter. The sensitive Susan is the only member of Hugh's family to realise his problem; yet she doesn't foresee that her children would shriek at the sight of Hugh's face: no comforting Good Night Uncle this, but a monster come to haunt their dreams. Around Britain Report lor the 24 hours ended 6 pm yesterday: Sunshine Rain Temp Weather (day) hrs in 'ENGLAND Aspatria 8.1 8 IB Sunny pm II UUII 10 14 Dull 8 II Dull 8 11 Dull 9 14 Cloudy 9 14 Cloudy 8 11 Cloudy 8 12 Dull 8 12 Cloudy Cloudy 10 13 Dull 7 9 Cloudy 7 11 Cloudy 9 11 Dull 9 11 Cloudy 8 11 Cloudy 11 Cloudy 9 11 Dull 8 14 Cloudy 11 14 Cloudy 9 12 Cloudy 9 12 Cloudy 9 14 Cloudy 9 15 Bright pm 9 16 Sunny pm 8 17 Sunny pm 9 17 Sunny pm 7 18 Sunny 9 18 Sunny pm 8 ts Sunny pm 8 17 Sunny pm 9 IS Sunny pm 7 17 Sunny pm 6 15 Sunny pm 8 17 Sunny pm 8 17 Sunny pm 8 18 Sunny pm 9 14 Sunny pm 8 15 Cloudy 8 13 Cloudy 9 13 Dull 9 17 Dull 8 15 Cloudy 8 15 Cloudy 10 16 Bright 9 16 Bright 9 12 Cloudy 10 13 Cloudy 10 17 Cloudy 10 16 Sunny 11 14 Bright pm 10 14 Dull 9 14 Cloudy 9 14 Cloudy 10 17 Cloudy 8 14 Sunny pm Maraeto. Heme Bay.

SOUTH COAST Folkestone Hastings Eastbourne Brighton Worthing 3.2 5.2 6.8 8.9 10.9 9.4 9.0 8.9 7.9 5.6 7.6 B.7 7.4 5.0 5.6 2.3 2.6 2.1 2.0 2.2 2.4 5.1 5.6 2.0 Llltlehamoti Bognoi Regit Hayllng lalam Southsea Ryde Sandown Shanklln Ventrtor- Bournemouth! Poole. Swenage, Isles otScllly- Guernsey WEST COAST jersey- St Ives WALKS Anglesey Catdll! Colwyn Bay-Prestatyn Tenby 1.3 4.9 0.3 10 18 Cloudy 10 15 Sunny pm 10 13 Cloudy 11 13 Cloudy pm 11 18 Cloudy 6 11 Cloudy 1 11 Cloudy 7 10 Cloudy 9 13 Dull 7 14 Bright 9 19 Sunny 8 12 Drittlo am 6 10 Sonny 8 11 Cloudy 9 17 Sunny a 10 Sunny pm 9 14 Fog am 7 11 Sunny pm NORTHERN IRELAND Belfast- 9.9 6 19 Sunny Reading not available. Major roadworks South-east aUO atoeUnghatiiaNrM Contraflow J4-J5 IHiah WvcombeStoken- church). M20 Kanti Restrictions J4-J5 (AZ2B7A229). alSO J3-J10 (AZ8ZAZ0J.

MSB feaaan Contraflow J30 (Ala) to Dartford Tunnel entrance. MMIandaEaat Amla KM Waal MM- landat Major roadworks J7-J9. is ana west vauiTvy u-morgani Restrictions J39-J41 (GroeaPen-tyla), M4 Savwm Bridge! Restrictions both ways. MS wouc wanarw coniratiow J11-J12 (CheltenhamGloucester). Road Information compiled and atirl led by AA Roadwatch.

Manchester readings From 8pm Thursday to 6am yesterday: Mln temp 9C (4BF). From 6am to 6pm yesterday: Max temp 14C (67F), Total period: sunshine, 0.2hro; rainfall, nil. uirmmgnam Bristol Buxton Leeds London 1.4 Manchester 0.2 Newcastle Norwich 0.1 Nottingham Plymouth 2.7 Ross-on-Wyei EAST COAST Tynemouth 1.5 Scarborough 0.8 Cleethorpea Skegnesa Hunstanton Cromer Lowestoft Clacton 1.2 Southend 0.9 0.7 VYeymouwi Exmouth Telgnmouth Torquay Falmouth 35 saunlon 4.7 llfracombo Mlnehead 3.2 Southport Blackpool 0.6 Morecamba 4.0 Oouglaa 7.4 SCOTLAND Aberdeen 4.7 Avlemcre 3.3 Dunbar. 0.5 Edinburgh Eskdalomulr 6.8 Glasgow 12.6 Klnloss 7.0 .01 Lerwick 11.5 Leuchare Preatwlcli 15.7 Stornoway 4.9 6.5 Wick 6.6 Around the world (Lunch-time reports) Ajacclo Algiers Amsterdam Athens Bahrain 'Barbados Barcelona Belgrade Berlln 'Bermuda Biarritz Birmingham 22 72 22 72 12 54 21 70 30 as 31 88 21 70 21 70 23 73 26 79 16 61 10 50 34 93 23 73 12 54 13 55 21 70 15 59 27 61 15 59 12 54 20 63 20 68 14 57 21 70 29 84 23 73 13 55 19 66 11 52 21 70 25 77 23 73 19 66 22 72 21 70 17 63 15 59 London 'Los Angeles Luxembourg Madrid Majorca Malaga Malta Manchester 11 52 16 61 23 73 20 63 23 73 22 72 20 68 12 54 Melbourne 17 63 25 77 32 90 17 63 19 66 'Miami 'Montreal Moscow Munich Nairobi Naples 'Nassau New Oelhl Newcastle 'New York Nice Oporto Oslo Paris Peking Perth (Aus) Prague Roykavlk Rhodes 'Rio de Jan Riyadh Rome Salzburg Seoul Singapore Bordeaux Bristol Brussels Budapest 'B Aires Cairo Cape Town Card ill Casablanca Cologne Copenhagen Corfu 'Oallas 'Denver Dublin Oubrovnlk Edinburgh Faro Florence Frankfurt Funchal Geneva Gibraltar Glasgow Helsinki Hong Kong Innsbruck Inverness tslanbul Jersey Jo'burg Karachi Lamaca Las Palmaa Lerwick Lisbon Locarno Domoay 21 70 25 77 24 75 29 38 100 9 48 26 79 21 70 20 66 15 59 20 69 26 79 19 66 22 72 11 52 21 70 25 77 38 100 22 72 21 70 26 79 31 83 13 55 25 77 19 66 22 72 22 72 23 73 18 64 21 70 21 70 22 72 20 68 15 59 36 97 15 59 22 72 Stockholm Strasbourg syaney Tangier Tel Aviv Tenerife Tokyo Tunis 29 64 22 72 Dr 10 50 16 64 15 59 16 64 33 91 22 72 22 72 9 48 21 70 23 73 Valencia Venice Vienna Warsaw Washington Wellington Zurich cloudy. Dr.

drizzle: F. fair: Fg. fog: hall: rain. SI, sleet; Sn, snow sunny; Th, thunder. (Previous day's readings) Sun and moon Today SUN RISES SUN SETS MOON RISES.

0449 2107 MOON SETS- MOON: Last qlr 5th SUN RISES SUN SETS MOON RISES- 0448 2109 0013 0907 MOON SETS- MOON: Last qtr 5th Ughtlng-up Today Bellas! 2148 2120 2117 2150 2107 2127 2133 2121 2149 2121 2118 2151 2109 2128 2135 2123 to 0454 to 0451 to 0459 to 0439 to 0448 to 0446 to 0435 to 0444 to 0454 to 0450 10 0458 10 0438 10 0448 10 0448 to 0434 to 0444 Blrmingham- erisioi Glasgow- London Manchesler- Newcastle Nottingham Tomorrow Ballast- Birmingham- ansioL Glasgow- London Manchester Newcastle Nottingham High tides Today London Bridge ows Dover 0155 6.7 1859 6.0 1413 8.7 1421 6.6 6.1 Liverpool 0200 Avonmouth 1012 Hull 0912 Greenock 0319 Lelth 0528 Dun Laoghalre 0220 8.3 11.8 2228 11.6 6.8 2147 6.4 3.1 1535 5.0 1806 3.7 1456 2.8 4.9 3.4 London Bridge 0531 Dover. 0227 Liverpool 0237 Avonmouth 1046 Hull 0946 6.6 1734 5.8 1449 8.5 T4S8 11.3 2303 6.7 2225 3.1 1612 4.9 1845 3.7 1538 6.5 6.0 8.1 11.3 6.3 as 4.7 3.3 Oreenock 0353 Lelth 0606 Dun Laoghalre 0300 London readings From 6pm Thursday to 6am yesterday: Mln temo 9C WK-i. l-rom own to opm ygnsroKy: Max temp 14C (57F). Total period: aunehfne. 1.4hra; rainfall, nil.

WMther Forecast, pag 24 afYMEIRIAD was the ap- propria te word for Evan Roberts. Its English translation "a is a thin version of the Welsh original. In Welsh it implies understanding, humour, a properly anarchic view of humankind. "Cymeiriadau" were the neces sary jesters, those possessed of the divine attentiveness ot true religion in a chapel-straitened society. Evan Roberts was perhaps the last of them.

Yet he was not just a figure of importance on the limited province of nationalism. Far from it. Evan was an ecologist of international significance who achieved recognition as the preeminent British field botanist despite having left school at 14. He was born in Capel Curig, Gwynedd, in 1906 a tiny village in the heart of Snowdonia. In 1920 he went to work in the Rhos Slate Quarry, high on the shoulder of Moel Siabod, where he spent 33 years.

It was bitter, dangerous labour which, from roc kf all or dust, killed most of the men who performed it and left Evan with silicosis. But it was also work with a tradition of culture and self-improvement which asserted itself to remarkable effect. One bright May Saturday in the late twenties, his wife Mabel ordered him out of the house, and among the crags of Moel Siabod a group of exquisite purple flowers caught his attention. He didn't know what they were, but in the process of nutting a name to them saxi- fraga oppositifolia, the purple saxurage he Began an autoai-dactic odyssey of heroic proportion. Ultimately he became the authority on the distribution of arctic-alpine flora in Britain.

Where Evan acquired his vast fund of knowledge on this tonic is to some extent a mys tery. It seems likely that it came at least partly from traditional sources. His grandfather had been a collector of ferns during the Victorian mania and his fern-book came down to his grandson. And as Bill Condry pointed out in the Guardian's Country Diary last Saturday, there was a body of information within local communities on the whereabouts of rare plants. However Evan came to this knowledge, his ability to communicate it was inspirational.

Professors flocked to his door. As if to make amends for the transgressions of Victorian pre decessors, he rediscovered species notably the holly tern long thought extinct. To reach the sites where many oi SINGLE long tracking tl snot reveus a Gothic chamber dominated tTUby a gaunt crucifix above an altar where stands a portrait of General von Hinden-burg. The camera then crosses a table on which there is a pistol on a leather-bound copy of Casanova, a watch, a volume of Heine, a nude statuette, whips, spurs and swords. This scene, establishing Erich von Stro-heim's character, is from La Grande Illusion (1937), directed by Jean Renoir, and designed by Eugene Lourie.

The Russian-born Lourie worked with Renoir as art director before the outbreak of war drove them to America. Lourie arrived in New York in 1942 where he earned a living as a commercial artist until Renoir, in Hollywood, begged RKO studios and the film union to allow Lourie to join him on This Land Is Mine. The union gave way on condition that Lourie designed the decor without stepping on to the sound stage during the shooting. This effective propaganda piece had to be located "somewhere in a difficult task for an art director. Lourie solved the problem by ingeniously adapting sets left over from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

But Hollywood was hard on artists like Renoir and Lourie, both of whom had a passion for the natural over the artificial. Their work in pre-war France leaned towards realism by placing their characters in environments that were solidly convincing. Witness the rough bricks, rude stairways and old wooden posts that often divide the screen vertically or project diagonally across the frame in The Lower Depths, or the "View from the Stationmaster's window over the steaming metal waste: the short, sharp Letters Dr Henry Cleere writes: Harry Ree (obituary, May 20) was a brilliant teacher who inspired one small boy whom he taught between 1937-40 with a deep-seated and abiding love for French language and culture, as well as an appreciation of the true meaning of freedom. Hilary Taylor writes: Harry was all that you describe but also a splendid cook. I was a young teacher in York in 1963.

I.