by F. L. Lucas
Produced by Frank Hauser
Wilde said that a man could be happy with any woman as long as he did not love her. F. L. Lucas puts it slightly differently in this play: One should never fall in love. It brings out the worst in people 'who might otherwise be quite civilised.' The play - first broadcast in the Third Programme last year - deals with George Sand's escapades in Italy with Alfred de Musset. The story is told by Dr. Pietro Pagello , who accompanied them. Tiring of de Musset, George Sand turned to him, and they went back to Paris together. But the affair, the one great romance of his youth, was short-lived. Recalling his memories fifty years afterwards he humorously remarks that he is famous, not as a pretty good surgeon, but for having been one of George Sand's lovers.