And now 'tis time...

Capping Has passed, and we are firmly set in the academic solemnities of the second term. But it would be sad to let those distant frivolities altogether fade without making some sort of commemorative gesture. For it has been proved to us that, rceent Extravs, Cappicades, and Proceshes notwithstanding, Capping Can be Fun. and students funny It would be scarcely well-bred to mention this year's procesh; but Extravanganza 66 and English Leather Cappicade were solace after lean years.

Certainly. Extravaganza had its weak moments, most of them during scripts which were longer than they were funny. But the important thing was that we were entertained. The show went at a gallop. Its choruses boomed; it had accurate imitations, grotesque clowns and some quite beautiful dancing. It had the services of some very witty musicians, not the least of whom was the visiting violinist, that prodigy from Petone, Mr. Tony Lenart. Though we remember Mike Mitchell's "Ho. Ho! (resonantly)" as the satirical highpoint of the evening, it was on the verve and jitter of the choruses, on the quick and well planned succession of one act on the next, on speed and colour that the whole depended. As a vehicle for satire it might be improved; but future contenders for the porcelain crown would be foolish to forget the strong design and the polish, greatly to be preferred to a succession of mouldering witticisms and unco-ordinated romps however festooned with toilet paper.

Cappicade was a tour de force, largely, one suspects, because its editors recognised that a joke is not automatically funny because it has Mr. Holyoake for its subject any more than there is anything intrinsically amusing about toilet paper. It had a variety of targets and missed few of them. One recalls with special relish the lovely tribute (in the luxury lift out middle section) to the Jokes of Capping Past, and the article that established with the clear logic of our best known weekly, that if Bob Muldoon was not Princess Anastasia, then the writer's name was not Jimmy Dunn.

Steve Whitehouse seems to have presided over both activities, aided with Cappicade by Geoff Rashbrooke. He is at least a pressing candidate for the Readers' Digest Immortality for a Year award.—A.M.B.