... Some Successes and Failures of a, on ihe Whole, Satis factory Year in the Theatre A Fairy Story in Modern Dress at the G a r rick Firth Shephard's Innovation at the Piccadilly BY PHILIP PAGE THERE is a long established tradition that as each year draws to a close, it must, and should be demonstrated that in the world of the theatre it has been significant of some particular phase, Usually I ...

... ALAN PARSONS' SCRAP BOOK YIELDS TREASURE TROVE Quotations and Extracts from Many Sources that Make Delightful Reading A. R. Glen's Under the Pole Star Smacks of Elizabethan Adventuring By VERNON FANE AT Christmas, in spite of my polite and hypo critical protests that I already had one, I was given a book, and that book is likely to remain as one of my fond possessions. It is a book to keep ...

... . By MICHAEL ORME. ''STAGE DOOR (Regal), the screen adaptation of a successful New York play by Edna Ferber and George Kauf man, is the eagerly anticipated picture in which two stars of totally different calibre-- Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn-- are teamed together. The contrast between them is not so sharp as might have been supposed, for both are enrolled in the army of struggling ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. IN these days when novelists are apt to choose subjects bounded by a triangle or some figure presenting the minimum of facets, it is re freshing to come across a story which, like ''Recapture the Moon, offers an infinitely wider prospect of the human comedy. Far from being counted on the fingers of one hand, Miss Sylvia Thompson's characters could hardly, I should guess, ...

... THE CINEMA In the Suburbs By JAMES AGATE THE other day I had an attack of what the French call nostalgie de la boue. I felt that I must at all costs visit one of the old bug-traps-- in other words, a subur ban cinema. The French have another proverb, the old one about returning to one's first loves. But, alas! first loves when you return to them are never quite the same! That little seaside ...

... Films of the Day Slices From American History By George Campbell WHEN the great actors of the screen are being discussed, nobody ever seems to think of Edward Arnold. I wonder why. In his own sphere, the sphere of American Big Business, he is supreme. Ever ready to de-bunk the Colossus with a joke against himself, humanising his ruthlessness with humour and genial sentiment (even J. J. Hill ...

... By Herbert Farjeon You Can't Take It With You (St. James's) BROADWAY has decided that this un pretentious little farcical comedy is a scream-- which, on Broadway, it no doubt is. But having seen the performances at the St. James's Theatre, I am tempted to suggest that it should be followed by a revival of The Playboy of the Western World with a picked all- English company-- say, Miss Margaret ...

... By Alan Thomas ETON, being not only a famous English public school but also an English institution, can be, as of right, and often is, boasted of, grumbled at, praised or criticised by any Tom, Dick or Harry, whether he knows a thing about the place or not. To those who desire to know something about it, or maybe are thinking how nice it would be to send their sons to Eton, I can thoroughly ...

... . I HEARD a thousand unblended notes as I made my way into the Royal Agricultural Hall to watch ALTHOFF'S CIRCUS. This is in the true tradition and for a moment my fancy framed the sawdust ring with flapping canvas and set it amid green fields; but alas, like poor Susan in Wood Street, the vision faded and I was at the Angel in Islington. How gracefully Mile. Jeanette Althoff puts her horse ...

... No. 53 Dr. Gogarty SENATOR DOCTOR OLIVER ST. JOHN GOGARTY (what a name!) is probably the only man alive who would have felt immediately at home with Aristophanes and the other great wits of the golden days of Greece. He talks brilliantly, his conversation is flavoured with Attic salt, he has a pagan love of beauty, he can argue that black is white, or pink, if it comes to that, and prove it to ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Far j eon A Midsummer Night's Dream (Old Vic) HERE is a thing, and a very pretty thing, and whether the owner of this very pretty thing is Shake speare or Mendelssohn or Mr. Oliver Messel or Kirby's Flying Ballet, let us not worry to inquire. This much, how ever, may be told at a glance-- that A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic has gone appropriately Old ...

... THE CINEMA Stage Door By JAMES AGATE STAGE DOOR, now showing at the Regal, is amusing, exciting, and attendrissant, each quality being intro- duced into the film with the mechanical precision of a chemist using a pipette. This was only to be ex- pected, seeing that the authors are Miss Edna Ferber and Mr. George S. Kaufman. Miss Ferber is a writer to whom plots present no difficulty. Her ...