... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THERE is going to be a lot of fuss over the screen treatment of Rachel Field's ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO! (Warner), but per sonally I find myself on the side of the screen-writers. You will remember that Miss Field's long novel fell into two parts. The first dealt with the life of a nineteenth- century French governess in Paris. It described how Henriette Desportes, just ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THERE was a time when a man of learning could make all knowledge his province. I imagine that in the seventeenth century it was still physically possible for one man to read all the books that had ever been written. How wonderful to know all there was to be known on any subject! Perhaps Francis Bacon was in that happy position. Shakespeare notoriously was not. Ben Jonson, ...

... The Best Novels of the Week Miss I. Compton Burnett's Story of a Family T. H. White Returns to Form Ffineteenth-Century Italy -By Vernon Fane TO a certain number of people a new novel by Miss I. Compton Burnett is something of an event. The school of her admirers being strictly eclectic, the number may not be very considerable, but there is recent evidence that they are becoming more numerous. ...

... War, Hens, and Omelettes -By Vernon Fane The Darting Vivacity of Lin Tutang Sadie Thompson in Paradise A Restoration Rake Carthage in Colour Michael Innes Amuses Himself What Tfapoleon Said to Hitler MR. LIN YUTANG'S WITH LOVE AND IRONY (Heine mann. 10s. 6d.), is a collection of essays, sketches and impressions which have all the darting vivacity of an aviary of birds. He writes of everything, ...

... Revudeville DAUNTLESS and indefatigable is the little Windmill Theatre, where the present revue has reached its 143rd year, or 143rd edition-- I forget which, but it is pro- bably the latter. Among the new items is a Paris and the Golden Apple episode, in which the Venus (Miss Margot Harris there is not much of her, and not much on her) is certainly not 143 years old. I am told, indeed, that ...

... 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 ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Forty-eight Hours' Leave (Apollo) THE chief difficulty confronting Mr. James Parish, the author of this comedy, would seem to have been to make the principal character nice enough for a leading lady like Miss Irene Vanbrugh to play; for Miss Vanbrugh is one of those actresses who, like Miss Marie Tempest, consistently demands sympathy. To make out a good case for Lady ...

... Two Views on Tife TWO books about artists, one written by a woman who combined married life with her career, and the other dealing entirely with the Bohemian side in Paris provide an interesting contrast and also considerable parallels. steua oowen was Dorn m Australia ana orougnt up in a rather Victorian atmosphere which for years she could not forget. In Drawn from Life (Collins, 12s. 6d.) ...

... By Herbert Farjeon The Cherry Orchard (New) IT does not need an alliance with Russia to justify a production of The Cherry Orchard. All critics are now agreed that this play reaches the very roots of tenderness, touches the very tips of beauty, is one of the dramatic masterpieces of all time. It was not always so. When The Cherry Orchard was first presented in this country in 1911, many ...

... By Herbert Far j eon Old Acquaintance (Globe) MR. JOHN VAN DRUTEN once wrote a tender and touching play entitled After All in which he demonstrated the indestructibility of old domestic ties-- a play of stodgy uncles, fusty aunts and seedy depen dants from whom the young turned with aversion as they grew up, but to whom they turned again as they grew older, wiser, less expectant of the future ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. LOVE ON THE DOLE, which you can see at the Odeon this week, is a very moving transcription of Walter Green wood's Lancashire play. It is the story ot the mill hands and their families in any Lancashire town, but in parti cular the story of the Hardcastles of Hankey Park father, mother, daughter Sally and eighteen-year-old brother Harry. Pennies are scarce enough in Hankey ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THE most startling film-- with the possible excep tion of Our Town-- to come out of America since the Coward- Hecht-McArthur Scoundrel is in- town this week. The title is CITIZEN KANE, and you can, and should, see it at the Gaumont. It is the brain-child and hand-work of twenty-six-year-old American Orson Welles, who goes in for .startling things. Welles, as you may ...