Your article on films that featured an actor in multiple roles (Double take, 11 September) might profitably have included at least one of the great actors who tackled the dual roles of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on screen. Best of all was Fredric March in Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 version, in which March transforms on screen in a single take from the gentle doctor into a truly sadistic and tormented Hyde. No bombast or special effects here – just talent and personality, unequalled even by Spencer Tracy 10 years later, where reliance was made on montage for the transformation.
Brian Baxter
Bournemouth
• As a Yorkshirewoman born and bred I am afraid I have to support David Cameron’s comments about intra-county rivalries (Yorkshire folk hate each other but they forgive me – Cameron, 12 September). This is typified by the following quotation from a speech given by a former vicar of Leeds more than 40 years ago, commenting on the appropriateness of Leeds street names. “Briggate leads to Leeds Bridge, Kirkgate leads to Leeds parish church – and Swinegate leads to Bradford!”
Nan Davies
Harrogate
• Sophie Heawood (Even David Bowie has a needy side, Weekend, 12 September) stirred up a memory of David Bowie standing in our Bromley front room in 1954, asking my mother, a local councillor, if she could help find him a council house. She said proudly: “He’s very talented, you know. He says he’s going to be a famous singer.” He had such a lovely smile, I thought. Still has.
Alison Prince
Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran
• I was amazed to see that the Japanese garden in Compton Acres, near Poole, Dorset, has cherry blossom in bloom and a large deciduous tree in spring leaf bud in September (Weather view, 9 September). Why was such an astonishing event not front-page news?
Gabrielle Palmer
Cambridge
• Your correspondent Brenda Craston (Letters, 11 September) asks who would be more suitable as head of this country than Prince Charles. Bruce Forsyth?
John Cregan
Farnham, Surrey
