Next week Tom Priestley, son of the late J B Priestley, will be in Bradford to launch a book of his father's writings about the theatre.

The great man's stock as a novelist may have sunk out of sight, but his reputation as a playwright and broadcaster has held up in spite of all the changes undergone by both the theatre and radio and telecommunications.

This 232-page book, bringing together from disparate sources of J B's thoughts, reflections and opinions pertaining to the history of British theatre, its future and the art of the playwright, should help to reinforce his repute as a dramatist.

During his long life he wrote 32 fulllength plays and six one-acters - one more play than Shakespeare, depending on whether you believe the Bard had a hand in The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII.

J B wrote a lot of other things as well. "In the 1930s alone he wrote at least five novels, three major works of non-fiction (including English Journey), several film scripts and more than 450 articles, as well as 14 full-length plays, " his son says.

The old boy felt he would have done better to have concentrated on the one aspect of his fiction with which he had a greater natural affinity - the theatre.

To J B, theatre was, is, more than entertainment: it remains an important communal activity. He was fierce in defence of it, as the following extract shows: "Among those enemies (of the theatre), here must be reckoned now a very large section of our Press, both London and provincial, which gives the minimum space and serious attention to the drama and makes no pretence of having any real theatrical values, lumping legs and Lear in one messy hotch-potch of 'show business.' "At least two thirds of our attempts at dramatic criticism are no longer even honest reporting, show no signs of taste, sensitiveness, or technical knowledge, and are well below the average member of the audience."

In his day the job of journalism was three-fold: to educate, elucidate and entertain, in that order. J B is suggesting that in his lifetime the entertainment aspect has superseded the other two imperatives.

In 1946 he concluded Letter to a Theatre Owner with a reprimand: "You ought to have been ready to lose money in order to create new dramatists and new leading players, to make sure of your future audiences. Instead of that, you have often deliberately kept out of your theatres the very productions that would establish new reputations, which would ultimately benefit you more than anybody. " Risk is inherently part of theatre, remove the risk and the drama and excitement of theatrical discovery go too.

"If I were addressing a class of your writers of prose drama, " he says towards the end of The Art of the Dramatist, "I would say to them: Above all, try and avoid a constant dribble of not very important speechMore silent actions, more terse bare speeches cut to the bone, more sudden explosions into eloquence - yes, more of these, and less of semi-polite, semiexplanatory talk, stuff not coming from the brain nor from the heart but from social conscientiousness" J B has much to say to us.

The Art of the Dramatist: And Other Writings on the Theatre, by J B Priestley, is published by Oberon Books, priced £12.99. Tom Priestley will be talking about the book at The Priestley, Little Germany, Bradford, on Sunday, March 19 at 2pm. Contact (01274) 820666 for tickets.