... MEMOIRS, MURDER AND ADVENTURE -Bv Vernon Fane Sir Henry J\[ewbolt's Autobiography, and His Lighter Side Three J\[ew Thrillers The Balkans Under Fire and let- or SIR HENRY oOLT (Faber and Faber. 2 is.) comprise the second volume of his memoirs which he started writing in 1932, six years before his death, and they have been edited by Lady Newbolt. This part of his reminiscences and diaries ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE PANAMA HATTIE.-- Rarely have I heard such witless dialogue as there is in this Cole Porter musical at the Piccadilly; every one was talking through his, or her, Panama hattie, and most of them seemed to need a microphone (and in one case a megaphone as well) in order to enable them to do it. Cole Porter's tunes are well below his usual level; indeed, the only music ...

... THE BEST BOOKS OF THE WEEK -Bv Vernon Fane M lie. Curie as a War Correspondent Biographical Essays of Two Saints The Story of a Bomber Pilot The Fate of the Islanders of Bonin MLLE. EVE CURIE, besides being the biographer of her great mother, is a war corre spondent of no mean ability. Her JOURNEY AMONG WAR RIORS (Heinemann. 15s.) is a brilliantly written journal of her experiences during the ...

... TWO good reprints figure in this week's list of books: the first, RAFFLES OF SINGA PORE (Collins. 7s, 6d.), which was written and published some years ago, but is well worth acquiring in its revised edition. Sir Reginald Coupland, who is Beit Professor of Colonial His tory at Oxford, is a superb biographer, as witness his Wilberforce, and this life of the founder of Singapore is not only an ...

... . Bv Robert Dane THERE must, I imagine, be few more disconcerting experiences than to be left goggling into a television camera at the end of one's act, uncertain whether one's face has been faded out or is still, smirking on the viewer's screen. I know nothing of the technicalities involved, but it does seem to me that it ought to be possible to devise some simple plan to put both performers ...

... j MICHAEL POWELL and Emeric Pressburger, the people who whang arrows into a target for their trade-mark, have had a pretty big tussle with the critics over their pictures, and sharp things have been said on both sides from time to time. But I don't think there should be anything except mutual cordiality over The Small Back Room, the Archers' latest. I It is intelligent, exciting, ...

... NOEL COWARD sets his last scene in May 1945. Visitors who come, unprepared, to the Lyric Theatre, may assume from a glance at the programme that a drama of the war years will end with an orthodox VE-Day scene and, possibly, with a speech that will be a parallel to the famous toast in Cavalcade. Later, reading the programme more carefully, they may wonder what a batch of S.S. Guards and ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. IT doesn't surprise me in the least to learn that GONE WITH THE WIND is going like hot cakes at the Empire, Palace and Ritz. There never was a film, I suppose, that gave you so much for your money. For three hours and forty minutes it tears your emotions to rags, tosses you from crisis to crisis, involves you in war and panic and passion and suspense, gives you a bedside ...

... AN OUTSTANDING WAR-TIME NOVEL Nevil Shute's Stirring Tale of the R.A.F. The Love Story of Goethe and Lofte Kestner Victorian Hilarity and Stuart Intrigue -By Vernon Fane IT is time the British public sat up and took notice of Mr. Nevil Shute. Not long after Munich, and just about the time when this country was becoming A. R. P.-conscious, a novel was published called What Happened to the ...

... AS Christmas approaches, the bookshop is our Mecca. We are looking, of course, for light and neutral stuff that will do just as well for Auntie Maud if we decide to give that tray- cloth to Auntie Dora after all. We hardly think in terms of weighty volumes like Lewis Mumford's THE CONDITION OF MAN (Seeker and Warburg. 25s.), which nowadays only America has the paper to print. But it is the ...

... STORIES OF PEOPLE AND PLACES --By Vernon Fane A Dramatic and Inspiring Play; An American Woman's Study of Japan; A Causerie on the Modern University A Smalltown Swashbuckler and the Thriller of the Week MR. MAXWELL ANDER SON is one of America's most distinguished playwrights, and I understand that his most recent play, THE EVE OF ST. MARK' (Bodley Head. 5s.), is now being performed in this ...

... The Best Novels of the Week Miss I. Compton Burnett's Story of a Family T. H. White Returns to Form Ffineteenth-Century Italy -By Vernon Fane TO a certain number of people a new novel by Miss I. Compton Burnett is something of an event. The school of her admirers being strictly eclectic, the number may not be very considerable, but there is recent evidence that they are becoming more numerous. ...