Elstree's Studios' damning original reader's report for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. 4pp. Typed on rectos only. Dated April 15th 1966.
 
Elstree Studios' original reader's report for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. The report is based on the 1966 stage adaptation of the play, which premiered on the West End premiere production, but was here seen at a pre-London performance at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Hussey.  The 1969 film, was directed by Ronald Neame and starred Maggie Smith, who won the Oscar and Bafta for her performance. Mr. R. Witcombe, the compiler of the report, seems only to have worked for ABPC very briefly. Witcombe gives a synopsis of the plot, then delivers their view: "As a parable on the conflict between latterday romanticism and youthful disengagement, extremely telling; as a miniature saga of a little-documented area of thirties reaction (that of the Bloomburyish attitudes to political unrest in Europe), little-documented at any rate, in terms of drama, since the Wesker/Naughton sect concentrate on such events from a working-class/fundamental socialist view of things, it has that curious blend of vividness and obliquity that one expects from Muriel Spark. "Production was good, so smooth that the occasional clumsiness (like that of a travelling scene from classroom to Mackay's study) was magnified out of proportion. Performances were good all round; VANESSA REDGRAVE and VICKERY TURNER were excellent. "Adaptation was in part very good. The main weakness was the narrator device that for some reason did not work, only obtruding on the central structure of the play in a mannered and rather arch poke in the audience's ribs. Certain created scenes, such as that with MARY and JENNY practising a tango in the gym while discussing the value of "sexual intercourse", was very clever. In genreal [sic — general] the quality of the original novel was faithfully preserved, so well that one wonders if Miss Spark had a hand in the stage version. One minor liberty was the telescoping of the characters so that the Brodie Set, in the novel a quintet, in the play becomes a quartet. This was quite justified and no loss was suffered since the qualities of two girls were [typed over corrections] condensed into Jenny. "Film potential is negligible, I should say. Certain of Muriel Spark's books might make fine movies, particularly perhaps "The Mandelbaum Gate" and "The Bachelors" (which has already been adapted for TV using a lot of filmed inserts). But much of the quality and power of "Miss Brodie" derives from the carefully established enclosure technique, whereby the world is this schoolroom. To see Mary being bombed in a Spanish troop train, to take just one scene that would presumably figure in a movie version, would clearly [crossed-out word] unbalance both the significance of the scene in itself and the overall atmosphere of the work. Just as, for different reasons maybe, to see RAFE at work in the factory and away from his home would wreak the same sort of havoc with "Spring and Port Wine". "Commercially, any recent summary of plays into films: — for example, "The Kitchen", "The Connexion", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", would reveal, I think, that all were and are still, box-office flops, frequently not even gaining any but limited distribution." Film production companies have been basing themselves at Elstree since 1914, and in most cases, their archives have been dispersed, lost or destroyed. This unique and hitherto unknown document from surviving ABPC reader reports has not been seen since its composition seventy years ago and has never before been offered for sale.