... OF tfe- ^t&uJFZ Anthony Cookman with Tom Titt A Fine Othello at Stratford MR. GODFREY TEARLE'S Othello-- the great event of the most distinguished of recent festivals at Stratford-upon- Avon-- is a strange performance. It flies in the face of all received notions of how Othello should be played, yet compels belief. Is not the Moor Shakespeare's supreme orator With the speeches given him have ...

... By Horace Horsnell Everyman: International Ballet (Lyric) IN the old days one of the minor pleasures of the ballet was the Argument, or synopsis of the plot, printed on the programme. This was written in a style all its own, romantic and elusive; and, often less explicit than the action it sought to explain, it fascinated rather than enlightened. One read it hurriedly before the house-lights ...

... TU By Horace Horsnell Living Room (Garrick) ONCE upon a time there were two kindly old maids named Vicky and Deborah who lived with Molly, their niece, in a fool's paradise somewhere up north. They were neither rich nor poor, but just com fortable. Their father had left, them a little house property for what they had fondly assumed was life. And since Molly, their only relative, was an orphan, ...

... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES Long, Dull and Worthy By James Agate Shipbuilders (New Gallery) is a very long, very dull, very worthy, very dull, and very long film about shipbuilding on the Clyde. At the press show critics were presented with an elaborate four-leaved programme nearly a foot square, in which a tiny rivulet of text meandered through a meadow of navy-blue margin. This colossal programme ...

... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES Two Films By James Agate DR. JOHNSON or somebody said that the first business of a writer was to be read. And I shall say that the first object of the film-maker is to make a film which can be seen with pleasure. Whoever you are reading me, I beg you at this point to stop twiddling your curling-tongs, winding your watch, or whatever it is that one does when one is ...

... Chicken Every Sunday (Savoy) IT is a sobering reflection for those who make light of national differences that the airiest trifles when put to the test are found to have their roots deep in the soil of a particular country. We all know that while on one side of the English Channel Racine is despised and Shakespeare worshipped, on the other Shake speare is tolerated and Racine adored, but here ...

... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES An Old Problem By James Agate EVERY Hackney judge has been presented with this problem: which of two animals shall he put first, the horse of beautiful quality but little or no action or the common brute who moves magnificently? It's an old teaser. Would you rather your son were at the top of the Fifth form or bottom of the Sixth? Yes, one knows all about Browning with ...

... Young Mrs. Barrington (Winter Garden) THE young Mrs. Barrington is a typical figure of the time. She was married four years ago to a dashing fighter pilot whom she has not seen since, and her married life has been no more than a brief, deliriously happy honeymoon and a long correspondence. On the eve of reunion there seems to be more than a chance that time may have made a fool of her and her ...

... Perchance To Dream (London Hippodrome) MR. IVOR NOVELLO has become our No. 1 specialist in stage glamour. Give him a great stage and where is his rival in the gentle art of packing it with glamour and nothing but glamour? Emulators may be imagined losing their nerve when they notice that inspiration is running short of wit. They have not the secret of Mr. Novello's formula. He dispenses ...

... Lady From Edinburgh (Playhouse) THIS ill-made little comedy has charm. It is Barrie-esque without the Barrie magic: indeed it might well have been written by one of Barrie's heroines, let us say Maggie Shand, who came near to declaring (you remember): Charm is a sort of bloom on a play. Those that have it don't need to have anything else Lady From Edinburgh has Ihis mysterious, all ...

... King Lear (New) FOR the opening of the Old Vic's new season, Mr. Laurence Olivier had been set two problems of daunting complexity. He was to produce a tragedy which some have thought essentially too big for the stage, and himself play Lear, a part beyond the powers of many famous tragic actors. But the feeling that Mr. Olivier is now one of the makers of theatrical history has become general ...

... THE NIGHT AND THE LAUGHTER (Coliseum) COLOUR and music, there is a happy abundance of both in this particular night, but laughter is in almost total eclipse. Only one explanation of the misleading title occurs to me. The show was devised by Mr. Robert Nesbitt, and having duly arranged for a first-rate comedian to be in attendance, Mr. Nesbitt became absorbed in devising a series of ...