... 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, ...

... 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 ...

... LIFE-STORIES OF THE GREAT Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton A Pungent and Vivacious Family Study The Clamour Boy of Adventure, and the Cash Value of an Elephant Ride -By Vernon Fane IN his autobiography, G. K. Chesterton told the world very little about his life, but a great deal about himself and about his intellectual activities. It has sometimes been said that no man can write a book, much less ...

... By Herbert Farjeon The New Ambassadors Revue (Ambassadors) NEARLY all the clever people in this lively, erratic revue-- and there are plenty of clever people in it-- have less to do than their cleverness deserves. In fact, the only member of the company who has a chance to come through the affair with really flying colours is Miss Madge Elliott, who has charm and comedy and dazzle, and who ...

... By Herbert Farjeon La Traviata (New Theatre) THERE are so many classical operas I have never heard that it would be misleading to make a special feature of my previous ignorance of La Traviata, with which the Sadler's Wells Company opened its fortnight at the New Theatre. But I already knew almost every note of it, from when, as a child, I went to bed, my musical brother used to lull me to ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. I BELIEVE I have observed several times before, and I am certain that I shall have reason to observe again, that Spencer Tracy is rather a remarkable fellow. How an actor can go on year after year, in good pictures and in bad, turning out perform ances that are consistently persuasive, intelligent and human, is a con stant wonder to me. Looking back on all the varied parts ...

... cRey\ewed by Noel Thompson I WOULD like to run a competition on Why I read books, and I would not mind betting that out of a hundred answers there would not be two the same. But surely in essence it boils down to a desire to lose yourself and at the same time to acquire something. If that is so I f* can recommend Go, Lovely Rose R. (Cassell, Ss. 6d.) as a universal pan- I acea, first of ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. GO, LOVELY ROSE is a novel with a theme so ambitious that few novelists of any period would not have hesitated to undertake it. The theme is, in a word, Sacred and Profane Love; and they are not so much con trasted as shown to be dependent on each other. Three stages mark the emotional and spiritual development of Richard de Hautefontaine his liaison with Diane de ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE short stories collected in Presenting Moon shine are fantasies with an extremely bitter taste. Less serious in intention than His Monkey Wife or Tom's a-Cold, they are inspired by the same grim conception of the human lot. One suspects, indeed, that Mr. Collier finds life too grim a matter to be treated realistically in fiction. He has an irresistible impulse to ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WALT DISNEY'S FANTASIA is here at last, and is likely to set all critical London by the ears. Coming out of the Press show, I overheard half-a-dozen conflicting opinions in as many minutes. One man was so excited by it that he couldn't see the edge of the pavement. Another was so outraged that he didn't care if he never saw it. A low brow remarked that the highbrows would ...

... By Herbert Farjeon King John (New) THIS all-too-rarely acted play, toured by the Old Vic Company up north before they brought it to town, was an extremely happy choice: not only because it has the raciest plot of any of Shakespeare's histories, but also because it is the most topical. As an exposure of national professions, of the place honour holds in war when it comes to the crucial ...

... WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE INDUSTRIAL ARMY? Mr. Trevor Evans's Disclosures -Mr. Bevin versus Compulsion -By Vernon Fane IN spite of its fatuous title, STRANGE FIGHTERS, WE BRITISH! (Robert Hale 3s. 6d.) is a serious work on a serious subject. Mr. Trevor Evans, who is the industrial correspondent of a great news paper, has surveyed the war effort and commits himself to the opinion that we are ...