... Meet A Body (Duke ok York's) Anthony Cooknian WE must have been an easygoing people in the thirties. At any rate, we seem not to have minded if pieces which had not the hardihood to claim that they were either particularly funny or particularly thrilling tried to make the best of both worlds by the comfortable device of calling themselves comedy-dramas. Now apparently we do mind. There ...

... dJj l&ji (uU{Jajl tiiys And Dolls (Coliseum) Anthony Cooknian THIS famous American musical comes to us in a theatre much too big for it. The same sort of risk was taken in the same theatre with Mister Roberts; and the risk this time seems even more hair-raising. For Guys And Dolls is a genuine exotic, as strange to us as the Crazy Gang in Cockney extravaganza would be to New Yorkers; and in ...

... ctt tfc- Aiii hour CJoukman Trcasdirc lltanf** (Apollo) AN excellent specimen of the farce made for export; indeed, it is quite a while since a better entertainment based on the wild exaggeration of national characteristics crossed the Irish Sea. In Spring Meeting the same authors, M. J. Farrell and John Perry, were much more ambitious. They drew its fun and pathos from direct observation ...

... Fifteen lean' Hard Labour London The Tongue-Tied Canary Death Knocks Three Times Elizabeth Beweti's FIFTEEN YEARS' HARD LABOUR (Gol lancz; 12s. 6d.) is the autobiography not of an old lag, but of London's famous magistrate, Claud Mullins. The years of hard are the years he served on the London Bench-- from his appointment in 1931, up to his retirement owing to ill-health. The book is ...

... ^RECORD DF THE WEEta IT is sixty years since I Pagliacci was first presented in Milan but for all that it is still one of the most popular operas in any reper toire. The newest recording of the famous prologue has been made by Tito Gobbi who gives a magnificent performance, one that I cannot imagine ever having been equalled. Not only has Gobbi a fine voice which he controls with complete ...

... Cbt Poinl ok* Departure*' (Lrrie, llaiiiniersmitli) Anthony (ooknian IN Paris M. Jean Anouilh is held to be the most original of living playwrights. We are rapidly coming to have the same opinion of him. He is both a tragic and a comic writer; and his language is the language of the stage. He was introduced to us by Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. They played his Antigone for the Old ...

... MYSELF IT TIE PICTURES Concerning Revivals By James Agate NEWS comes of the revival of The Sign of the Cross (Plaza). This film is, of course, an absurdity, but an absurdity on the grand scale. I have been sufficiently interested in the revival to look up what was said of Wilson Barrett's play in 1896. William Archer took the line that this orgy-- which he was sufficiently rattled to spell as ...

... (tt- At(er My Fashion (Ambassadors) Anthony lookman MISS DIANA MORGAN'S new play is exciting. It would be more exciting still if she had had the courage of her main theme and refrained from bedecking and bedevilling it with obvious contrivances; but the contrivances have at least a superficial stage effectiveness and most people will be grateful for what they get. She has a problem of ...

... 44 To What Far Bourne Oh Traveller 99 Elizabeth Bewen EVELYN EATON'S FLIGHT (Gollancz; 10s. 6d.) is a story which moves outside known dimensions. Rarely does a novel embrace so much. For the theme is the transition we know as death, shown in terms of a new adventure-- an adventure fraught with sensations which for a time seem to be those of life. Martia Deane takes off in an airliner, for a ...

... Pretty Kettle of l isli EUaubvih //of- >ft ELIZABETH JENKINS'S Six Criminal Women (Sampson Low, 10s. 6d.) is a study of major characters-- six exceptional members of the sex. For, as statistics show, women in serious crime are rare. Murder, house-breaking, forgery have, even in these progressive days, very largely been left to the male practitioner. Ladies tend to confine themselves, more ...

... (bt Tlic Moment Of Truth (Atlclplii) IT is sad to see a good subject swamped in a deluge of words. The subject obviously (though Mr. Peter Ustinov will not be tied to names) is the French collapse of 1940, and history has provided in Pétain and Laval strongly contrasted characters linked in a fateful relationship well worth a dramatist's study. Mr. Ustinov is so discursive and long winded ...

... Elizabeth Bowen How many myths there were about Popski and his Private Army! observes John Willett, in his prefatory note to POPSKI-- A Life of Lt.-Col. Vladimir Peniakoff (Macgibbon and Kee; I8s.). Popski, the author goes on to say, like Lawrence, was a man whom people liked to find mysterious. He seldom corrected even the craziest stories. How crazy some of the stories were one can ...