... by Playbill THE theatre has probably never meant so much, both in London and the 'provinces, as it does to-day. That is not to say that every theatrical produc- tion is full of meaning; many of them, in- cluding some of the most popular, mean precious little. But there is a probably unprecedented boom, and the living drama, from Shakespeare to pantomime, is being supported (most London ...

... THE WAR ON LAND AND SEA --By Vernon Fane A Cruiser Epic Bromfield versus the Boche The Fifth Column Reaches Bloomsbury Miss Sitwell Reflects and Ponders Mr. C. S. FORESTER is supreme in his field: the dramatic, ingenious and poetic presentation of British sailors on the high seas. In the past, his novels (for he is essentially a writer who is happiest in the elastic bounds of imaginative ...

... LIVELY READING IN FACT AND FICTION -By Vernon Fane The Biography of a Flying Pioneer Eighteenth-Century American Frontier Battles A Ffovel of Occupied France, and a Thriller of the Week BILLY MITCHELL is known as the stormy petrel of American aviation, and his life is still regarded by many as an example of a man fighting against inertia and prejudice in high places, and against a re luctance ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE THE little Windmill Theatre, with its non- stop revue (which has not stopped, save for necessary rest and refreshment a few hours in the twenty-four for the company, for ten years or so) has other claims to consideration in addition to its record of hard work and the fact that it is the only London theatre to have had a play written about it and produced in New York. I ...

... 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 ...