The fault with many contemporary plays is simply that they do not have a plot.

Rory Johnston, London NW3. Nobody to my knowledge has improved on Polti's 36 possible plots, though some of his sub-divisions taken from classical models are, to say the least, tenuous Situation 26e: Confusion may have arisen with the old saying among comedians that there are only seven basic jokes.

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John Pilkington, Playwright, Exeter, Devon. Leslie Caplan, London NW3. Rick, an expat Yank bar-owner in wartime Morocco, begins as a drunken cynic but his 'essential goodness' is at last celebrated.


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Like the Greek warrior, the proud, 'fatally flawed' Rick - once a doer of great deeds - spends most of the story sulking in his tent. He is forced into selfless action only for the sake of the refugee Elsa, the woman he loves.

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Rick's good looks, fame and wealth may be parochial but they are Faustian and gratuitous. Inevitably, Rick's debt is called in and he gives up his business, his girl and everything he has lived for. Elsa's wiles entice Rick into her service only to destroy him. Once, in Paris, Rick and Elsa loved and lost each other.

Here, in Morocco, they get back together but are finally parted again. In a concrete sense the gift taken away is a Letter of Transit which would enable Rick to go back to America but which he is forced to give up to Lazlo. More symbolically, the gift is of personal happiness and is sacrificed to political necessity, since to save Lazlo is to save the world for democracy.

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The Irrepressible Hero is Rick personified. There is also a ninth archetypical story-line, The Wandering Jew, which is bafflingly excluded from Mr Johnston's list. Rick is, of course, the persecuted traveller who will never return home.


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Thus, instead of eight or nine stories, there is only one, and it is called Casablanca. Robin Blake, London WC1.

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It is the quest for these that makes a story. Most stories have more than one theme and it is the superimposition of themes, with the arising conflicts, that makes a story interesting. Robin Blake's suggestion that all stories can be imposed on the Casablanca plot is really saying that Casablanca contains several basic themes, which it does, most of which are not resolved and in general are badly written.

Nevertheless, the film is good because of its dramatic tension, partly created by the fact that actors were given their scripts on a daily basis, so never knew the ending themselves. It might also have been quite a different film if the original actor chosen for the lead had played the part: The seminal book on this subject is 'The Seven Basic Plots' by Christopher Booker - pages of detailed analysis.

The classic ‘hold my beer’:

His list was something like: I forget what else. Concealment might be another. I'm not convinced there are seven jokes, but it's one of those myths people repeat. Mar 25, Messages: Novella, You are correct in thinking the seven jokes come from Freud's work. He published a book entitled 'Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious' which defines seven joke techniques: Ice , Oct 28, Feb 23, Messages: Crystal , Oct 28, You must log in or sign up to reply here. Your name or email address: Do you already have an account?