Letter: The shock of the nude

THE Happening, which included the brief glimpse of a nude at the drama conference at the 1963 Edinburgh Festival, was organised by the American Happening artist Alan Kaprow with Charles Marowitz, Mark Boyle and myself, and the nude was Boyle's partner Joan Hills (Kenneth Roy, 21 August). Kenneth Tynan as chairman had welcomed the incursion of a bit of avant-garde. It consisted of a speech by Marowitz interrupted by me to the accompaniment of a few anarchic events in a gallery above the stage. It is an irony that the immediate comments by Tynan, future producer of Oh Calcutta] were of a primness that would have done credit to a Victorian governess. Almost as enjoyable for me was the planning session in which Marowitz announced that he would make a pompous and boring speech, and admitted that few listening would realise that he was sending himself up.

Charles Lewsen

Montpelier, Bristol