A Survey of African Poetry in the London Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement 1865-1985

We must hope that the reception given at the Royal Court last night to verses and songs by Mr. Wole Soyinka and to his one act play The Invention will make this Nigerian writer less suspicious of the London theatre than he gives the impression of being. Whenever he allowed a reader or a character to speak directly to the audience, the audience responded. It went more than half way towrads doing so even when Mr. Soyinka plainly was not addressing it. If he thinks this was prompted by the thing he hates most, a patronizing attitude on the part of a white audience, it will be a pity. It was prompted by respect for his gift for words. When his words were clear, clarity was their most striking quality. At those times he had written briefly, without repeating himself, and then suddenly the wish to do just that, to say it all over again, became too strong for him. What his last comment was on the relationship between the races most of us will never know. For instead of making it at the end of The Invention he made a joke, or else, figuratively speaking, he mumbled. So the comment was lost. For us, a pity.