Et cetera > Consider the public
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Consider the public. Treat it with tact and courtesy. It will accept much from you if you are clever enough to win it to your side. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry and make it think, but above all, dear pioneers, in spite of indiscriminate and largely ignorant critical acclaim, in spite of awards and prizes and other dubious accolades, never never never bore the living hell out of it. From Consider the public: a warning to pioneers by Noël Coward originally published in The Sunday Times, January 1961. Republished in My Life with Noël Coward by Graham Payn (with Barry Day), |