Letter: Not mad Tom at all

Sir: Your headline today 'Controversial film casts doubt on poet's sanity' misrepresents my views. Your correspondent does not quote me as saying that Brian Gilbert's film of my play Tom and Viv portrayed T S Eliot as mad.

In fact, everything Eliot did or wrote was well reasoned and in line with the spirit of the time.

The film explores the tragedy of a time when women were incarcerated on grounds of 'moral insanity'. Edith Sitwell's comment, 'at some point in their marriage Tom went mad and promptly certified his wife' is, I believe, simply an arch arrow from a rival poet.

Yours faithfully,

MICHAEL HASTINGS

Greenford,

Middlesex

16 August