Madam, – “From the Archives” (The Bulletin Page, daily) is always an enjoyable read and Joe Joyce does us a great service in scouring the archives. But reprints can be fraught with that most awkward of journalistic customers, the misprint.
The edited reprinting (February 18th) of Vivian Mercier's review of the Faber publication of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot(February 18th, 1956) includes an oft-quoted line about the play. However, two of the words in this sentence were italicised in 1956 and were not in Friday's reprint. This may seem ludicrous pedantry on my part but the quotation, now famous, ought to be re-quoted accurately, with the slight emphasis that italics give.
The original sentence runs thus: “What’s more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice.” – Yours, etc,