... 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 ...

... RECORD DF THE WEEK THE musical taste of the general public often takes a curious' twist, and those who are sworn anti-jazzites suddenly become conscious that something of this day and age is worth while. In the same way the jazz fiend discovers that the basis of this type of music is often directly traceable to a solid knowledge of the classics. Thus it is interesting to see that Sidney Torch ...

... Elizabeth Bcwen s BROWNS AND CHESTER: A Portrait of a Shop (Lindsay Drummond; 15s.) has an unusual author-- Mass-Observation. Up to now, this form of research has been applied to contemporary affairs; and enlighten ing, if sometimes startling, have its results been --we have been documented, if one may so put it, up to the hilt. We may still be ignorant as to our neighbours' ways of life if ...

... THERE are two recent recordings of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and though it may seem too much to suggest that both versions of this major work are heard, no one who really enjoys and appreciates music should miss listening to one or other set of records. Apart from the actual performance of the orchestras concerned, both recordings show how much in advance British recording systems are ...

... The Borgia Testament 14 The Wisdom of Dr. Johnson 44 Portrait of a House 44 Devil's Reckoning: Elizabeth Botven s NIGEL BALCHIN is, as a novelist, admirable-- not least admirable for his way of being for ever upon the move. Reputation came to him early, but he has not been content to take out a patent on, simply, one kind of success: he continues to experiment, to break new ground. He came out ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE The Past Year's Films AT this time of year the correct or at least the expected thing is to write an article entitled The Year's Best Films. And at once the old, old question has to be asked-- Best films for whom? Which brings me still nearer to first principles when one begins to ask oneself-- What is a good film, and what is a bad? Let me deal with the bad films ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE WHAT PLEASES THE PUBLIC THE other day I read somewhere-- precisely where doesn't matter-- an attack on the quasi-musical person. It was a witty and an erudite attack, but completely invalidated, to my mind, by the notion, undeclared though implied throughout the article, that great composers write their music for the benefit of musical critics only! I think I never ...

... Blithe Spirit (Piccadilly) By Herbert Farjeon MR. NOEL COWARD calls his new play An Improbable Farce, which is a bit of pleonasm, for are not all farces, in their very nature, improbable? Super natural would have been a happier word, since Blithe Spirit skylarks with the occult, extracting its humours from the materialisa tion of a dead wife, perceptible only by her living husband. Fear ...

... Elizabeth Betvens Creatures of Circumstance Treadmill Leave to Presume the Death The Novel Since 1939 QUITE an interesting study for the sub- historian could be: errors which gave rise to famous false alarms. These, I imagine, would be found to thicken with the approach to our own fortunate day: the type writer must be responsible for many. I advisedly say the typewriter, not the young lady at ...

... TU By Horace Horsnell Sky High (Phoenix) Those two queens ot Burlesque, iviesaames Hermione Baddeley and Hermione Ging- old, have become popularly associated as a kind of dual constellation in the vaudeville heavens, where they shine with mutual and derisive glory. When last we saw them fooling there together, the slogan was Rise Above It Now it is Sky High, which seemed to promise even higher ...

... Golden Eagle (Westminster) THE new play is pleasing alike to eye and ear. Costumes designed by Mr. Gower Parks divide the stage into delightful patterns of black and gold, swarthy green, pearl white, and ruby-hearted crimson. To the movement of these colours Mr. Robert Atkins's production imparts a slow grace. The dialogue of Mr. Clifford Bax has leisurely elegance and the incidental music of ...

... 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, ...