... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Come Out of Your Shell Criterion FOR the first time in its history, the Criterion Theatre has become the home of revue, which innovation tempts me to reflect on its past and on the happy age when I would be taken by my parents to see Charles Wyndham and Mary Moore in their Victorian- Edwardian heyday in David Garrick, and Rosemary, and the comedies of Henry ...

... Films of the Day Stewart and Laughton Get New Style Parts George Campbell BUT think of my position! moans Mischa Auer, gambling for his pants with Marlene Dietrich, in Destry Rides Again. I've met every king in Europe. Well, now you 've met two aces, retorts the queen of the dance-hall implacably, reaching for the stake and back to his infuriated wife goes the Yiddish cowboy in his long ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon The Body ITas Well Nourished f Lyric) HERE, for a start, is a body in a piano. Why in a piano How in a piano That would be hard to say, but bodies must be put some- where, and in a new comedy-thriller it is up to the authors (in this case Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat) to find a new place to put them in. Imagine the thrill when some of the notes won't play. ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Thunder Hock (Neighbourhood) PLAY-PRODUCING societies, formed to present better plays in better ways, are such an old story now that the advent of a new one hardly makes pro fessional critics feel like jumping over five-barred gates for joy. These better plays, these better ways, rarely get be yond the Statement of Aims, which all say the same thing with devious ...

... The Bystander Bookshelf Diary of an Income-Tax Payer By V. S. Pritchetl A LITTLE mass-observation done on the index of Ego No. 4 (Harrap; 18s.) shows that Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Beethoven, Marie Felicia Malibran and the caustic brother Edward are still Mr. James Agate's chief pre occupations. Hitler, Ibsen and Sir Hugh Walpole don't do so badly either. The delightful Contes Scabreux, or ...

... The Theatre Herbert Farjeon Panto and Ustinov (Players' Theatre) The Players' Theatre in Covent Garden, being a period theatre, has appropriately celebrated the Christmas season by presenting a period pantomime, that period being the Vic torian 'sixties, when writers of skill and wit were engaged to provide principal boys, principal girls, principal comedians and principal cats with their ...

... Films of the Day Our critic here selects his favourite films of last year. Some of them are illustrated on pages 58 and 59 George Campbell THERE are no films of the day, except Gulliver's Travels. People have been complaining of Max Fleischer's full-length cartoon that it isn't very original-- they say it s too like Disney's Snow White. Well, what of it? It's quite unlike Gulliver's Travels. ...

... The 64 Bystander Bookshelf The Devonshire House Set By V. S. Pritcliett FUTURE historians will be ironical at the expense of the infatuation with the late eighteenth century which has seized us during the last decade. On its lonely deathbed, they will remark, a hundred years of liberalism lost its faculties, reverted to childhood and played once more at being the Whig aristocracy. No sooner ...

... Films of the Day An Elizabethan Tale for the Times By George Campbell MY loyal subjects, proclaims Eliza beth at the end of the new Sea Hawk, a grave duty confronts us all: to prepare our nation for a war that none of us wants-- least of all your Queen. We have tried by all means within our power to avert this conflict. We have no quarrel with the people of Spain or any other country. but ...

... liy V. S. Pritcliett COMBUSTIBLE literature-- so, Dame Ethel Smythe says, her music was once defined. That goes for her memoirs as well. What Happened Next (Longmans; 15s.) is full of com bustion. Where so much of reminiscence comes flavourless out of the human refrigerator, and serves up coldly and hygienically what was once warm and alive with cheerful bacteria, Dame Ethel Smythe dishes ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Ridgeway's Joys Players AS a release from care in these con fining times, there is much to be said for Ridgeway's Joys, Late or Early, at the Players' Theatre, where you can eat, drink, and not only join in the choruses but, in the case of certain ready-witted artistes, such as Alec Clunes and Robert Eddison, even interrupt the performers. Here you can forget, ...

... The 66 Bystander Bookshelf An English Chameleon IJy V. S. Pritchett MR. R. C. HUTCHINSON is a chame leon among the novelists. His books assume the character of foreign novels. He can become, for example, a Russian writing a very Russian novel about the Revolution, a book which will appear to be a synthesis of the main scenes and themes of Russian fiction. Now The Fire and the Wood (Cassell gs. ...