Charles Arnold-Baker
Professor John Pick writes: Although it is true that Charles Arnold-Baker (obituary, June 10) had no formal training in arts administration, his influence upon the subject’s worldwide development has been immense. In 1979 I was head of what was to become Europe’s first university department of arts management, at City University, when Charles burst one morning into my room. He introduced himself and asked me what we were trying to do. I stammered some sort of a reply, whereupon he smiled and said that he thought he “might be able to help”.
Never was there a truer word. Within a month he had entirely rewritten the arts law syllabus and had begun to comment incisively on management practice, drawing upon his vast and idiosyncratic knowledge of history, politics, the arts and the law. He was a vivid teacher. In classes he urged students to think beyond the bureaucratic confines of arts management as then practised. His exam papers in arts law, based upon invented case studies which could involve anything from drunken actresses to one-legged parrots, became legendary — not infrequently reducing candidates to helpless laughter before they saw the challenging questions embedded in them.
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Patrick Newley
Roger Sansom writes: I worked with Patrick Newley (obituary, June 8) in 1973 when he was a tall, gangling but solemn 18-year-old actor then called Jack Newley in what your obituary correctly calls a punishing season in Barry, South Wales. Its high spot was an ambitious adaptation of Dracula; I was the Count and he was Dr Siward, the asylum director.
All my appearances were heralded with low lighting, music and the swirling around of property bats on nylon lines. As the bats were cut out of polystyrene they looked hopelessly proppy if seen in repose and occasionally a line would get snagged on something, and the bat would land.
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I remember Jack disposing of one that was sitting awkwardly on the set by giving it to the young actor playing Renfield, the highly dramatic lunatic, who, like the bats, is a creature of Count Dracula. “Yours, I think, Renfield,” he said firmly, handing the intrusive object to his surprised “inmate”, who exited with it as though it all fitted the vampire mythology.
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Vivian Cox
Colin Richardson writes: As a former colleague of Vivian Cox (obituary, June 2) in the languages department at Cranleigh, I remember that he was proud of his fluent and idiomatic French. On one occasion he took Louis Fleury, the French film director, to a match at Lord’s. Convinced that he had successfully explained the intricacies of the game, Vivian was disconcerted by the response: “Mais qui sont les deux pharmaciens?”