I read a 'thumbs-up' review of this year's national pantomime in your December 31 publication and several questions came to mind.

There is no doubt that Barbara Gloudon is one of the finest playwrights and long-standing keen observers of Jamaican life - and perhaps in that vein, this year's offering Runner Boy is an excellent production. I have yet to see it but certainly plan to.

My concern is that for many years and up to, perhaps, sometime in the 1990s, there was some sort of competition for writers to submit scripts to the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) to be vetted and the most suitable script selected.

This resulted over the years in offerings from such excellent writers as Gloria Lannaman and Pat Cumper. I believe Carmen Tipling might have been among those whose productions were mounted.

What of other writers?

What has happened so that over the last decade or so all the pantomimes have been scripted by Barbara Gloudon? Is it that the LTM is now a private company of which she is the CEO?

Are other writers incapable of presenting material suitable for family viewing? Are writers still submitting scripts for a review? If so, who are the reviewers?

It seems to me that however gifted and talented an individual is, fresh eyes and fresh perspectives will allow for the development of new talent or grant expression to other Jamaican voices.

If there are concerns about standards, then use a broad-based panel to vet the scripts and have the writers 'wheel and come again'. It cannot be good however, in the long run, for creative expressions to be locked up in one pair of hands.

I am, etc.,

ALEX B. WARD

Kingston