... BUMPED into Reggie Forsythe the other afternoon. Doing anything much I enquired. Not much, he replied. I rehearse with Arthur Young at five-thirty broadcast at seven-thirty do two shows at Hatchett's broadcast again (this time to America) at one- thirty then start my day's work at the Embassy. But I '11 be free about five a.m. Come round, and I '11 play you my latest composition, Serenade to ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Escaping into History THERE was a letter in The Times the other day urging that while we should do wrong to under estimate the strength of our country's enemies, we should be on our guard against over-estimating them. I think that the cinema news-reels ought to take some note of this, and that such elements of reassurance which exist should be given full place in our ...

... The Theatre By I lerbert Farjeon Clin Cliin ('.how'' Palace THEATRICAL history would seem to suggest that it takes a great war to get Chu Chin Chow on to the stage. Last war, when it was first pro duced, it ran for five years and 2238 performances, or nearly a thousand per formances more than any other piece presented in this country had ever run before. Then, for nineteen years, it lay, so ...

... By V. S. Pritchett HARD as nails, soft as sugar-plums, the American reporters are a rich man's children who would die rather than admit they did not know the world. They sweat after sophistication; Who's Who-- and even more, -- are their Ph.D. theses. Their other aim in life appears to be that of people who want to pass as having started a night club in a Methodist chapel. Life, liberty and ...

... DAPHNE BARKER came of age last week, and came clean with a party (champagne and everything) at Quag's-- sorry, Le Meurice. It broke up about one, and I prepared for my habitual club-crawl. Do you know, said Dorothy Ward, I ve never been to a bottle-party in my life. Then hold on round the curve, I said, and we sallied forth. But it was not to be. We hadn't reached the corner when the ...

... THE ESSAY-- A LOST TECHNIQUE A Fictionised Biography of Charles Lamb, the Master Essayist --By Vernon Fane THE art of the essay having lain in the doldrums for so long, it is not surprising that there should be a genera tion at large which knows little of and cares less for Charles Lamb; allowing itself to be unshaken by the fact that its elder brothers were Eliaphobes almost to a man, ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE Art of Living is not an art that can be practised nowadays, but one finds a melancholy anti quarian or academic interest in hearing it discussed by someone who knows as much about it as does M. André Maurois, himself a member of a nation which knew more about it than any other of the modern world. Poor France One finds oneself dropping into the past tense, not only ...

... THEATRES OF WARTIME LONDON. By THEODORA BENSON and BETTY ASKWITH, Authors of Foreigners or Hie It orld in a Nutshell. No. ir. SWINGING THE GATE, AT THE AMBASSADORS. AND the tiresome thing is, Laura went on, one doesn't want to go out with anybody else. Doesn't one said her sister Vivien politely. No. This evening, for instance, Timmy asked me to go to Swinging the Gate.' I hear it's ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. I HAVE often wondered, and never quite been able to deter mine, how it is that America can graft the silliest stories on to her flag-wagging pictures and get away with it, while the fiction-stories attached to our own Service pictures are apt to stick out like a sore thumb. Take Merle Oberon, for example. saying good-bye to Ralph Richardson in battle-dress in ihe Dion Has ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Women Aren't Angels (Strand) THE appeal of this risible and, in spots, roarable farce depends largely on the humours of undressing and dressing-up. We all know by now that Mr. Robertson Hare is not Mr. Robertson Hare if, some time during the evening, he is not deprived of his nether garments. This is his signature situation. But not only Mr. Hare is compelled, ...

... AND what are you going to do when you grow up? I asked Pat Burke, as I helped her make a sand- castle, many years ago, in Australia. Sing, oi course, she replied, Like my mother and father. Anyone can sing, I said, with all the cynicism of my first long pants. Not like me, she insisted, with the quiet confidence of her seven years. Everyone in London will come to see me, and people will ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE A NOBLE FILM OF THE NAVY CHARLES LAMB or some such essay ist once advocated allowing the street to air before one took one's morning walk. I hold the same with regard to picture palaces, always timing my arrival to coincide with a moment which occurs about ten minutes before the end of the first picture. This process almost luvaiiauiy piuves xiuw iignt a was lu miss ...