... O Op135 Oc om DEAR LOVE (77/e Palace Theatre THE Palace Theatre was built as a home for English grand opera, and now, after nearly forty years, an operatic singer has been engaged there to play a musical comedy hero. Affairs are progressing-- at glacier rate. The very sentimental title of this musical comedy is justified. The leading couple fall in love at first sight and pour out their ...

... Qur Gft,ous Oc on A WARM CORNER (Princes Theatre). THE complaint which has been lodged against this play, which is by Arthur Wimperis and Lauri Wylie, is that it is a musical comedy without music. This is rather unfair, because, although the story is certainly of the musical comedy brand, you would have to cut half of it away if you had to make room for the songs and dances, and then you ...

... Our Of*005 Oc on FRENCH LEAVE The Vaudeville Theatre). THE revival, after ten years, of this cheerful comedy by Reginald Ber keley is not un welcome, since it pleasantly stimu lates throughout its three acts and only declines for a part of the middle act to the more worn-out antics of farce. The fact, however, that a fortnight back it formed one of no fewer than sixteen plays then running in ...

... Qur Gpt,ou* Oc on WELCOME DANGER (The Carlton 7 heatri f GREAT is the doctrine of compensation. Only the other day sensitive people shuddered to hear that in putting before the public a film adaptation of a play by William Shakespeare, the picture-house pro prietors (or exhibitors or renters, or whatever name is given to those deep-throated, full-waisted gentlemen whose cars wait for them ...

... Qur Oc on THE MAN IN POSSESSION (Ambassadors Theatre). THE present entertainment at the Ambassadors is in that earlier form of curtain-raiser followed by principal piece. As often happened in the past two directly opposite plays are selected. It used to be considered necessary to harrow up the soul of any audience which had come principally to see a wild and abandoned farce with a hors ...

... THIS book of reference, first appearing in 1912, had not been published since 1925 until the new edition, issued this week at 30s. net by Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., made its appearance. Like Falstaff, it grows in bulk with age, but instead of having become plethoric ill it is a case of the bigger the better. Its compiler and editor is Mr. John Parker, and the book now runs to over 1 ...

... Qur Oft'0** Oc on THE WAY TO PARADISE (Daly's Theatre). WHATEVER other qualities we may deny to Mr. Campbell Dixon, who has constructed this peculiar play from Mr. Aldous Huxley's novel, Point Counter Point, we cannot refuse to grant him daring. The huge, amorphous mass of the book rises, six hundred pages high, a sexual heap alive with under standing of, but not love of, mankind. I It has ...

... Qur Ofl'°U5 Cm c on MICHAEL AND MARY (St. James's Theatre). BECAUSE of the hu manity and humour of Mr. A. A. Milne, Michael and Mary is a good entertainment, and since those who live to please must please to live, a good entertain ment may be called a good play. All the same a sense of unreality pervades it and makes us depend on its charm and humour rather than on its power of ...

... Our Of1'05 Oc on HONOURS EASY' (St. Martin's Theatre). THIS drama is by Mr. Roland Pertwee-- actor, dramatist, novelist, and no bad hand at either-- and like all plays which depend mainly on their plot, it gets that plot badly punctured in the unfolding. It is in a sense a ghost from the past, for it is a series of strong situations interspersed with comic relief of an extravagant land, ...

... Qur OPt'°U5 Oc on FRANKENSTEIN (The Little Theatre IF the thunder and lightning men only get trade union rates at the Little Theatre they are grossly underpaid, for they are at it for half the play. They ought to sell their flashes by the dozen and charge for their thunder, like bakers, by the roll, with an extra shilling for the final blinding flash which does the business for the monster. ...

... Our Gft,ou* Otc on HERE COMES THE BRIDE Piccadilly Theatre). AFTER its Talkie reign the Piccadilly Theatre has now to be re discovered by another, a musical comedy, public in that little turning which separates it from the Regent Palace hotel. Incidentally the new play houses which are being opened in London seem rather to run to size, and size, though delightful when you have a raging ...

... Our Of1'005 Crtc on ODD NUMBERS (The Comedy Theatre). IF international gangs of thieves are like those seen on the stage of farce no more simple and confiding creatures can possibly be imagined. Admittedly they easily let off guns, but this only accentuates their simplicity, since they either fire at the wrong person or miss the right one, while in between target practice they hand priceless ...