Sir, - Further to Gerry Dukes's review (October 5th) of James Knowlson's Damned To Fame. I would like to set the record straight about one item in Professor Knowlson's scholarly work. He writes that Alan Simpson changed the first line of Wailing,/or Godot from Nothing to be done" to "Nothing doing".
I don't know where Professor Knowlson got this information - he consulted me amongst the hundreds of others during his research - but it's incorrect. It's true Alan - did, however unforgiveably, change the first line. He did so - because he felt that "Nothing to be done" was a literal translation of Rien a faire and that a French clochard might well use the latter expression, but an Irish tramp would not use the former.
He was anxious to make the play fully accessible in all its humour and tragedy. His 1955/6 production was entirely successful in this aim, unlike the London production, which apparently gave press and audience the impression of a philosophical work for the intelligentsia only.
Considering the impression created by the first line to be especially important, Alan therefore changed it from "Nothing to be done" to "It's no good!", something anyone might say after a vain struggle with too tight boots. "Nothing doing" sounds unlikely and, as Alan's assistant on the production, I can vouch for the fact that it was never said during the six month run in the Pike, nor the subsequent run in the Gate Theatre, nor on the nationwide tour which followed. Yours, etc.,
Upper Leeson Street,
Dublin 4.