... The Theatre: By Herbert Farjeon The Beggar's Opera (Haymarket) SIR NIGEL PLAYFAIR'S production of The Beggar's Opera was, in the view of some of us, just a pretty taradiddle. If it was not true, it was taking. It lifted the eighteenth century out of the Wardour Street rut, gave it a thorough dusting and a new coat of paint, substituted cerise and apple-green. for the old snuff and plum, ...

... Begone, Thou Wicked Spirit By V. S. Pritchett THE Poltergeist or racketing spirit is the music-hall turn among psychic phenomena. It makes no melodramatic or picturesque gestures, does not appear like Hamlet's father on the castle wall, or walk about with its head under its arm, clank chains or pass through walls. It does not turn up sorrow fully in period costume. Clownish, irreverent, ...

... Films of the Day Last of the Gentleman's Wars By George Campbell STILL they come, these films of the American Civil War; and I don't wonder. The realities of that four- year struggle-- its frenzied hates and devastation, its hunger and its carnage-- are forgotten. What remains is the idealism and the pageantry, very suitable material for entertainment. In Virginia City and Dark Command, both ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Swinging the Gate (Ambassadors) THE new Gate Revue, warmly wel comed on the first night, is light, bright, and, as is to be expected where Miss Diana Morgan and Mr. Robert MacDermot are largely concerned, better than most. Of the twenty-seven items, half a dozen are really good, which may not seem a large number, but the general effect is excellent. And ...

... The Theatre liy Herbert Farjeon King Lear (Old Vic I IN these days of artistic as well as every other kind of crisis, high praise is due to the gallant stars who have rallied voluntarily to the cause of Shake speare. Headed by Mr. John Gielgud, who could command as big a salary as any actor in England, and who is always thinking of the theatre first and himself afterwards, they are appearing ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon White Horse Inn (London Coliseum) IF it's not a revue, it's a revival. So somebody, with, more or less, truth. The assumption would seem to be that what was good enough for 1914 will, or should, be more than good enough for 1940. One manager even announced the other day that he had a play which did quite well in the provinces last war, so he was thinking of ...

... Films of the Day History by Guitry George Campbell This is ordinarily the season when film producers, with a smile of ineffable benevolence, unload all the junk in their cellars, and eager aunts drag tolerant nephews to see it. Things are different this year. Of seven new films, only one is rubbish. The rest range all the way from Sacha Guitry's witty improvisations on the theme of royal ...

... \^7H1TAKER S Almanack (published at VV 12, Warwick Lane, E.C.4 12s. 6 d. [leather], 7 s. and 3s. 6 d. [abridged]) is one of the few books of reference that almost any one can pick up any time and find something not only that they did not know but that they would like to know. It takes the world as its matter and presents it to you concisely taped in 1130 pages. As well as favourite and useful ...

... The ninth edition of this invaluable book of reference has at last appeared, compiled and edited as usual by John Parker, pub lished as usual by Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., Parker Street, Kingsway, at 30s. Who 's Who in the Theatre is, of course, far more than a collection of biographies of everyone connected with the stage it con tains a directory to London Playbills, 1936-9 the late J. M. ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon High Temperature (Duke of York's I WHAT I say three times, quoth the Bellman, is true-- for getting, by the way, to say it more than once, so perhaps we needn't believe him. But on a similar principle Mr. Avery Hopwood, the author of this depressing scramble, would appear to hold that what is done three times is funny, and what is done three-and-thirty times ...

... The Bystander Bookshelf Salvation in Fleet Street Bv V. S. Pritchett Two Biblical Salvationists are rein carnated this week: Mr. Douglas (Jeremiah) Reed, the only man to be always right about Hitler, and Mr. Malcolm (Ecclesiasticus) Muggeridge. But perhaps Mr. Reed is not Jeremiah, but the man with the Salvation Army drum telling us how he found the Way and calling us to Repent. In his ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon All 's Well That Ends Well Vaudeville WHEN the war broke out and the shows shut up, I suggested to a friend that then, if ever, was the time to put on King Henry VI., Part 2, since in normal circumstances how could it hope to stand against Under Your Hat?-- but with all competi tors out of the field, somebody might go. A similar thought seems now to have struck ...