... 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. THE New Gallery, I suppose, will again be the Mecca of parents with children to entertain these Christmas holi days. The new Disney Christmas annual is out, and it's called DUMBO, and proves to be the simple, gaudy, straightforward sort of thing that children expect from Disney, without any disturbing innovations. Dumbo is a baby elephant, an innocent, blue-eyed baby born ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. SERGEANT YORK (War ners) would appear, at first sight, to be the sort of war- film that is generally made several years after the end of a war. In its restraint, its sincerity, and its care ful avoidance of hys teria and jingoism it belongs to the class of The Big Parade, Journey's End, and All Quiet on the Western Front, rather than to the vituperative melodramas of ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. DURING his literary career Mr. Osbert Sit- well has opened doors leading into many countries, many subjects, many lives. There is nothing deliberate or experimental about his versa tility. Poet, satirist, critic, traveller, as well as novelist, he writes to satisfy his curi osity about life, and this curiosity is continually taking fresh forms for its expression. Like Alice ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Love in a Mist (St. Martin' s) ON the programme there is Exmoor, and on Exmoor there is fog. Hence the title of Mr. Kenneth Home's new comedy. And hence, when the honeymoon car containing Pat and Nigel, married that very morning, can no longer see its bonnet before its wind-screen, the bed-and-breakfast bungalow of Mr. and Mrs. Evans appears to offer most timely refuge. Mrs. ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. WHEN a director makes one good film, it may be luck. When he makes two, it's a pleasant surprise. When he makes three, he has got to be watched. When he makes four, it 's getting serious. When he makes five, you can begin to think about calling him a great director. By this arithmetic, TOM, DICK AND HARRY (London Pavilion and Marble Arch Pavilion) makes a great director out ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THE problem of evil is one that always interested Sir Hugh Walpole and provided the subject of many of his novels. To him, evil was not a mere abstraction, it was a force that entered into human beings and possessed them. I do not remember if the Devil makes a personal appearance in any of his books, but there are plenty of characters so like him as to be almost ...

... Reality and Reminiscences --By Vernon Fane Charles Graves goes Awfully British Bernard Darwin s Memories Mrs. Belloc Lowndes Looks Back on Childhood Frank S. Smythe, the Happy Mountaineer ONE of the first bits of literary gossip I heard when I got back to London was that LIFE LINE, by Charles Graves (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.), had sold out its first edition in a few days after publication. I had ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. IT is a sad commentary on the quality of life at the present day that lyrical poets should be so few. Poets we have in plenty; but they are reflective and interpre tative, satirical, denunciatory or partisan, prophets first and poets second. The spon taneous flowering of a mood, essential to lyric poetry, is withheld from them, so con cerned are they with dis cerning the ...

... -- I DO not know a better book than Joy Homer's Dawn Watch in China (Collins, 12s. 6d.). Here was a girl who spent fourteen months not only touring the Chinese provinces, but also the Japanese areas. She travelled over all except three of the provinces, covered 1,200 miles on a truck, lived in caves, was in numerous air raids, visited the front line trenches, met generals and coolies alike, ...

... By Herbert Farjeon Ducks and Drakes Apollo AFTER the success of Spring Meeting-- which though I did not see it, I under stand from well-informed sources to have been an excellent piece of work--Ducks and Drakes, by the same author, comes as a disappointment. To describe it as more than just another unpretentious little comedy would be to give it more than its due. To detect in it any ...

... TU By Herbert Far j eon The Morning Star (Globe) HERE would seem to be the first serious play on the present war produced in the West End of London. The pribbles and prabbles of coupon comedy give place at last to the anguish of hope, the routine of heroism. Death hovers ominously; little principals peep between his legs for self- respect and existence; the siren wails, the thunderbolts ...