... 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 ...

... The Theatre liy Herbert Farjeon Cottage to Let (Wyndham's) As soon as I set eyes on Trently (Peter Rosser), I came to the anxious conclusion that he was up to no good. It was not only that his complexion was pasty-- a bad sign in a spy play-- but that, having given notice to leave John Barington, the eccentric scientist (Leslie Banks), a few months before, he had now come back, on the eve of ...

... NOVELS SET IN DISTANT LANDS A Sfory of the East English Country Life A Blood from the West By Vernon Fane MR. LIN YUTANG is a Chinese who writes in English. Many readers will remember how much they enjoyed, and were impressed by, The Importance of Living and My Country and My People. Now Mr. Lin Yutang has published a novel of contem porary Chinese life, MOMENT IN PEKING Heinemann. 15s.) ...

... MURDER AND MUSIC A Thriller at the Lyric; The Proms Again Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE IN spite of the sort of weather one expects to get in August (which is surely a sufficiently safe way of putting it) and sundry alarms and excursions, the theatrical boom which started a month or so ago not only continues but (as I write) is increasing. It is true that last week only one new play was produced, ...

... THEATRES OF WARTIME LONDON. By THEODORA BENSON and BETTY ASKWITH, Authors of Foreigners or the World in a Nutshell. No. 17. BALLET AT SADLER'S WELLS. IT isn't true, said Paul, to main tain that We of The Press spend our whole time drink ing. We also pull strings. He was justly proud of having produced two good stalls for the season's three new ballets all on one pro gramme. in response to ...

... . OF making many books there is no end. Of course, one shouldn't say that; of course it 's far too hackneyed for repetition. But now and then it comes home to one quite alarmingly. Think, for instance, as I have just been thinking, of the way certain books produce other books. You can buy the tragedies of Shakespeare in one thin volume but to house the writing they have caused, vou would need ...

... Films of the Day Adaptations Roberts, Wallace, and Poor Shakespeare By George Campbell DURING the Seven Years War, when both British and French used Redskins in North America, the most appalling raids on British settle ments came from the Indian village of St. Francis, away up on the St. Lawrence. It was there that the savages took prisoners for torturing, and hundreds of scalps to decorate ...

... . THE great American novel is a familiar idea, but it 's an idea I 've never quite understood. No one talks of the great English, or Russian, or French novel; and as for the great European novel-- let alone attempted, it can't be thought of, even vaguely. So why America why this dream of putting all America in one book Now to be inconsistent. If my objections have any force, they must ...

... Round the New Shows At the Theatre Dear Octopus (Adelphi) DEAR OCTOPUS wears well, and still clings as closely as ever to public favour. It is, of course, a habit of octopuses, octopi, or octopodes (that 's the right one), to cling. The revival at the Adelphi confirms me in my opinion that the play is a good one, but thin, in that it is sadly lacking in the dramatic element. I do not suggest ...

... 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 ...

... . I HAVE always felt that creating character must be child's play beside the task of re-creating a living person. Fictitious characters are not lifelike, and though we call them lifelike, it is only in a Pickwickian sense. The truth is that no real character could be got into a novel there simply wouldn't be room. And, of course, historical biography,' in its presentation of human beings, is ...