Mervyn Jones, ‘Baldwin as Pamphleteer’, 07 May, 1965, Tribune, Vol: 29, Issue 73, pp. 10-11. p. 11.

Negative review of Blues for Mister Charlie, which played at London’s Aldwych Theatre and was produced by Burgess Meredith. Jones describes the play as ‘wrong turning in a talented writer’s career’.

The review features a photograph of Al Freeman Jnr. as Richard Henry, Beverly Todd as Juanita, and David Baldwin as Pete. The photographs is by Douglas Jeffrey.

‘A couple of weeks ago Tribune’s “Without Comment” column included a choice sentiment from a Trotskyist journal, regretting that Sean O’ Casey had become a writer instead of devoting his talents to the political struggle. I’d pass this without comment too, except to remark how little Trotsky would have shared the outlook it embodies. It recurred to me in a melancholy way, however, as I left the Aldwych after the Actors Studio production of James Baldwin’s play Blues for Mister Charlie. On the strength of his novels, I rate Baldwin very high indeed as an imaginative writer with an almost magical sense of interaction between individual and history. Now, he seems determined to turn himself into a pamphleteer’.