artcetera: THE WEEKLY QUIZ THAT TESTS YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ARTS

1 What links Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego and a Southern loan-shark who murders a defaulting black client?

2 Meanwhile, down in Suffolk, the May King blows his prize-money on a debauch: what's all this?

3 Who was the lawyer's clerk rejected by Esther Summerson?

4 Snudge is to Fraser as Bootsie is to - ?

5 Which English dramatist of the Fifties and Sixties wrote A Penny for a Song and The Devils?

6 Who was the junior clerk in the bank at Walmington-on-Sea?

ANSWERS:

1 Trout: Kilgore Trout is the science-fiction writer who appears in or narrates a number of Vonnegut's novels; Paris Trout gave his name to a novel by Pete Dexter, and the subsequent film. 2 Britten's comic opera Albert Herring. 3 William Guppy, in Dickens's Bleak House. 4 Bass: Bootsie was played by Alfie Bass, Snudge by Bill Fraser in the sitcom The Army Game and the civvy-street spin-off Bootsie and Snudge. 5 John Whiting. 6 Pike, as played by Ian Lavender in Dad's Army.