... VA UDE VILLE THE A TRE The Cuckoo Mr. Charles Brookfield's old farcical comedy has been vigorously dusted, trimmed, and furbished. Originally it was adapted from the French of Meilhac, now it has been adapted to the present hour by Mr. Brookfield from his own adaptation of a decade or so ago. When the curtain goes up, two of the characters are discovered wrestling with the last line of a ...

... the LIBRARY By VIVIAN CARTER Rita's Wrongs Righ'ed Everybody, more or less, will have congratulated Rita on her damages. To have raked up her old stuff and reprinted it as new was bad enough; to have put her name to it and represented it as the latest and maturest product of her genius was unspeakable. Of course, some people may differ. Having read some of Rita's really latest and maturest ...

... g]jbrc\ny The Short Story Famine Why good short stories are written so sparingly nowadays by those who once excelled in them is a little literary mystery of the times. A solution is, possibly, that it is hardly worth the while of a great man to squander even a ewe lamb of an idea upon one ephemeral issue of a periodical, paid for at once by one dull, dead cheque. Publishers have, therefore, to ...

... SCALA THEATRE A Night with the Stars By ERIC CLEMENT SCOTT To use an expression in theatrical parlance which has been borrowed from the Showman's Vocabulary, A Night with the Stars is a freak performance. The phrase is not so derogatory as it appears. Once upon a time Mr. Charles Frohman had a way of compiling casts which were designed to stagger playgoing humanity. It was rumoured that ...

... the Jt'fou/jouses By ERIC CLEMENT SCOTT Q UEEJV'S THE A TRE A Persian Princess I cannot quite acquit Messrs. Leedham Bantock and P. J. Barrow of the charge of cruelty. They have trotted out an impersonation plot which, in varying form, has done such yeoman service that one would have imagined that even a librettist would have been moved to compassion, and would have left it to end its days in ...

... Why Wake Up Wake Up, England! (Skef- fington: 3s. 6d.) is the title of a book by Mr. P. A. Vaile. Mr. Vaile, who appears to be a New Zealander of sporting associations, has been over here for awhile, and finds things in a pretty bad way. Everything seems to be, somehow, on the down ward grade. Sport, politics, drama, religion, education, morals, are all decadent. Mr. Vaile wants us to wake up, ...

... By VIVIAN CARTER Another by the Other Winston Mr. Crewe's Career The latest novel of Mr. Winston Churchill (American variety), Mr. Crewe's Career (Macmillan: 6s.), is a highly political performance. Persons not interested in Governmental problems generally are hardly likely to get through with it. True, the human interest is considerable, and the personalities of the principal characters are ...

... ■p.ta Ijbreay A Parisian Poet These are times of mourning in French literary and theatrical circles. Death takes the two Coquelins, then, soon afterwards, M. Mendès, the veteran poet, novelist, and dramatist, whose accidental death on the railway recalls the tragic mishap with the stove which ended the life of Zola. Like Zola, too, Catulle Mendes, for all his sixty-eight years, showed no signs ...

... Mr. Frank Parker has produced a pretty little fairy play, entitled Honeyland for the holiday attraction at the Hippodrome. We are taken to the home of the Fairy Bees, and shown most wonderful sights. We are introduced to Little Tom Horner, Miss Muffet, and her famous spider, which disports itself upon a gigantic web. Water Nymphs appear mysteri ously from the depths of a fury pool, and as ...

... THE FUN CITY AT OL YMPIA The Mammoth Fun City, which was opened to the public on Christmas Eve, is an enjoyable place in which to spend an evening. There is an end less round of amusements to be done and numberless sights to be seen among the latter are the Touareg, the Morocco Village, the turretted Katzeri^ammer Castle, the German Giant Submarine, and the Lighthouse. Beketow's famous Russian ...

... ICINGS IVA Y THEATRE Miss Lena Ashwell, who has made such a phenomenal success with Irene IVycherley at the Kingsway Theatie, has secured a play by the author of The Prayer of the Sword Mr. T. B. Fagan. The play is in three acts, and the title Greater Love. ...

... the LIBRARY By VIVIAN CARTER BOOKS OF THE WEEK The Roman Empire. By H. Stuart Jones, M. A. (Fisher Unwin 53.) Paradise Court. By J. S. Fletcher. (Fisher Unwin 6s.) Paraguayon Shannon. By E. Hugh O'Donnell. (P. S. King and Son.) Irene of the Ringlets. By Horace Wyndham. (Milne 63.) A Daughter of BeliaL By Basil Tozer. (Rebman.) I am sorry to hear that Mr. Meredith has not been so well ...