The Gilbert and Sullivan Newsletter Archive

GILBERTIAN GOSSIP

No 7 — July 1977     Edited by Michael Walters



PEOPLE: 4. COLIN ENGEL

My first meeting with this avid Savoyard occurred on 19th April this year, when he not only made it to London but was sufficiently organised to contact me first and arrange a meeting. He and his girl friend came round and spent the afternoon in my room. He and I had beep in correspondence for about two years before meeting - he has been oscillating between Keele University and Strasbourg, where he was doing a course. I was rather surprised when he described me as ''the angry young man of Gilbert & Sullivan" - it was clearly intended as a compliment, but I confess I felt it was a slightly backhanded one. He has performed in amateur G & S, subsequently giving it up because he felt he was not good enough. Hopefully he may be persuaded to take it up again. A man with the intelligence and self criticism to feel he is not good enough to do something, often proves to be better than those who think they can do it. MICHAEL WALTERS



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