... Round the New Shows At the Theatre The Chocolate Soldier (Shaftesbury) IT is not necessary to go back as far as 1910 (the year of the original production) for a comparison with last week's revival of The Chocolate Soldier, at the Shaftesbury. It was given not many years since at this very theatre. Both these previous productions dif fered from the present one in that they were musical ...

... I WANT an old Etonian, said a rather snooty young lovely at the St. Regis bar. At your service! cried a dashing Guards officer clicking his heels. An old Etonian, she said, somewhat icily, is two-thirds gin, one-third Lillet, and a dash of dark Crime Noyeau. That 's exactly what I am, replied the indomitable one. She relented. Maybe c'est la guerre, maybe c'est that demoralising ...

... Round the New Shows At the Theatre Swinging the Gate (Ambassadors). THIS is not the time for overmuch fault- finding in the theatre and the defects of this intimate revue should be dwelt upon lightly, or possibly ignored alto- gether in view of the pluck involved in having it produced at all. For, as I write, successfully established productions in London are vanishing wholesale, and many ...

... Riding, by Benjamin Lewis (w. n. Alien, ae luxe eamon 1 is.). The fact that one enjoys riding horses is no excuse for galloping into print and yet the spate of books on the subject in recent years gives one the impres sion that almost anyone who has ever had anything to do with horses feels he and often, she is quali fied to write authoritatively about them. Consequently, some dreary and often ...

... Chu Chin Chow (Palace) MR. LYN HARDING, playing the late Oscar Asche's part with splendid virility and unctuousness in a revival of the triumphant favourite of the 1914-18 war, said, in effect, in his first-night speech, that the intention was to stir up happy memories for those who saw the original production, and to delight those for whom the play is new territory. Both those objects should ...

... THE new show at The Coconut Grove, Six Belles, is Dick Hurran's last production before joining up, and his best to date. Whitie Neesen, Baby Bradshaw, Deirdre Mack, and Barbara Wood are all equally alluring, whether disguised as Parisian midinettes or Beginners of the Beguine; and Rona Riccardo, in the most shocking Shocking-Pink pyjamas you ever did see, dances like a thing possessed. ...

... Gilbert Frankau's Self-Portrait A Novel of His Own Life. Hutchinson ios. 6 d.) 'PHIS is the story of Mr. Frankau's life up to the age of fifty-five, and much more than his own modest claim for it a tale that may be altogether out of date, just the dry bones of one insignificant individual's totally unimportant struggles for solvency and happiness. As a book it is not perfect. In places it ...

... Books: Ty? vie wed by ...

... Russian Opera Mussorgsky's Sorotchintsi Fair at the Savoy Theatre The merrymakers of Sorotchintsi a Ukrainian village, group themselves round the gipsy fortune-teller Lipa Balmont), whose tale of a 44 pig-headed devil in a red coat plays its part in the gay, inconsequent story Mussorgsky's comic opera, Sorotchintsi Fair, which is based on a story of Gogol, who himself was a native of ...

... OA Toss of the D'Urberville 'Pic ad illy) ANY theorist can prove, at least to his own satisfaction, that it is a foolish mistake o dramatize a novel. Life would be very dull if we all stuck to our theories. Mr. Sha, conveniently forgetting the hard things he has said of those who dared lay impious hands on the sacred text of Shakespeare, has found himself re-writing the last act of ...

... By Horace Horsnell Snlt of the Earth (Vaudeville) TOPICAL history is as susceptible to fabulous treatment as that which is more remote. It depends on the his torian. Mr. Michael Egan, the author of this busy little play, is too keen a dramatist to be fussy about speculative data or embarrassed by niceties of chronology. Nor is he a stickler for mere chapter and verse, but selects his material ...

... THE CINEMA A Batch of Winners By JAMES AGATE WHATEVER else is betiding, has betided or is about to betide, we shall remember the first half of October as a vintage period in the film world. In the last few days one new film after another has had brilliant direction, unusually satisfying acting, freshness, live interest, quality and speed. I think it is this last attribute of fastness, of ...