• DOROTHY PARKER quip: “I went into the Plymouth Theatre a compar­atively young woman, and I stagger­ed out of it, 3 hours later, 20 years older, haggard and broken with suffering.”

Comes from being Vanity Fair drama critic during the 1918 flu. She added: “There is always this to be said for the epidemic of Spanish influenza – it gave the managers something to blame things on.

“Whenever a manager saw that all was practically over with a play, he hid his aching heart under the guise of a noble solicitude for the public welfare, and with an air of ‘It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before’, announced that the play would be removed… the Spanish influenza has helped many a play to make a graceful getaway.”

MIKE BOR
W2