Add MS 88983/6

Comprises approximately 100 letters and postcards. Includes:

Correspondence relating to the closure of 'Oh! Calcutta!' 1976. Royalties listings and profit distribution of the final totals. Correspondence regarding initial ideas for the production, such as possible ideas for sketches and costumes. Correspondence with Kenneth Tynan regarding money owed. List of writers, composers and designers for the production 1967. The company wanted to use Michael Butler (producer of 'Hair') to work on and produce 'Oh! Calcutta!'. The Arts Council's reaction to obscenity - they would like the law changed, Michael Foot and his involvement in campaigning to abolish censorship laws. Concerns over the foreign rights of 'Oh! Calcutta!' and discussion of the show opening in Paris before London (1969). Lists and discussion of possible directors: A. Page, Peter Wood and J. Dexter as well as Claude Chagrin for 'movement'. Playscripts such as an alternative ending for a sketch entitled 'Hamburg 1929'. Correspondence with Kenneth Tynan and 'Hilly' (Hillard Elkins) in Nov 1969 when the play was just about to be staged. Information for the London production including notes on amendments for the sketches and correspondence with Kenneth Tynan explaining his concerns over the opening of the London production 1969. Correspondence concerning casting and the director Jacques Levy's new material. Correspondence with Tynan regarding the idea of 'Oh! Calcutta!' being performed 'at cut prices in a strip club in Soho', his selling of the rights to the play (July 1970) to a company called Rosetta S.A. and extensive criticism of the play. The play was not particularly well received and reactions are described such as 'the audience did not laugh very much and by the time the light came up on the curtain call, the applause was dying and many people were on their way out'. Ideas for new ways of attracting audiences are discussed such as the possibility of a 'lunchtime' 'Oh! Calcutta!', which would only be 75 minutes long. Records and receipts of trips to France and Germany for a 'Mediterranean season' of the play in 1975, the French production having begun in 1971. Correspondence with Kenneth Tynan regarding his new play 'Carte Blanche' which he believed to be more demanding than 'Oh! Calcutta!' as well as information regarding the royalties for the play. Kenneth Tynan very keen to take 'Carte Blanche' to Broadway, correspondence discussing this idea and a proposed tour for 'Oh! Calcutta!' in 1979.