“[Kenneth] Tynan is a brilliant but rather odious young fellow, who is good when he is enthusiastic, but cheap and personal when he dislikes anyone’s work (he hates mine). I said once ‘Tynan is very good to read as long as it isn’t you’ but he is shrewd and readable all the same, only lacking in any respect for the tradition and of course he has seen nothing earlier than 1946! And he thinks theatre must be propaganda of some sort, and if it is merely entertainment (even if it includes it being art) it is not worth anything at all, which seems very boring to me.”
Sir John Gielgud, letter to Stark Young (Sept. 15, 1958)