... By Herbert Farjeon Jam Today (St. Martin's) HERE is a comedy of libel. It begins, improbably, before the play opens with a novelist who, in search of a name, gets it out of a telephone directory, that name being Ilona Benson. As Ilona Benson is married to Hubert Benson, and as they are living together in the same house in Campden Hill, and as she does not seem to be pursuing any career of her ...

... f By Horace Horsnell The Duke in Darkness (St. James's) SHAKESPEARE apart (for musical comedy hardly counts) the costume play is rare these days; and historical drama, though at times in fashion, must always be out of date. At the moment it is unfashionable. This is not altogether due to the war, though when the times themselves are fraught with alarums and excursions, there is less need to ...

... Ginger in Triplicate In The Major and The Minor Ginger Rogers plays havoc with Ray Milland as herself, a girl of twelve, and her own Mother In The Major and The Minor Paramount* s latest comedy (Plaza, December 18), Ginger Rogers has a new leading man Ray Milland. The picture a screen play by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett is directed by Wilder, who has never before made a picture, ...

... 66 The Petrified Forest Robert E. Sherwood's Play Comes to the West End With Owen Nares in the Part Created by Leslie Howard The Petrified Forest is being presented by H. M. Tennent at the Globe Theatre to-night. It is the London production of a play which proved one of Leslie Howard's greatest successes on both stage and screen in the 1930's. Written by Robert E. Sherwood, who has already ...

... By Horace Horsnell The Importance of Being Earnest (Phoenix) THIS revival should gratify those who regard The Importance of Being Earnest as the wittiest comedy in the language. For sheer banter, indeed, it would be difficult to rival. Claims to supremacy might be made on behalf of Congreve's The Way of the World, whose chief characters, literary style, and selected scenes are incomparable. ...

... By Horace Horsnell Current Revue THE proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the test of a revue (the manager might say) is in the box office. That may be the crucial lest; but there are others, æsthetic, critical, and those which the play goer applies. The playgoer-- that wayward, incalculable client for whom the manager caters-- has arbitrary and conflicting tastes. He wants to be amused, ...

... By Horace Horsnell Othello (New) IF Mr. Wells's time machine were available, and we could thus attend a performance by Shakespeare's own company, which of the plays, I wonder, would draw the largest audience? Hamlet, perhaps, or one of the comedies. My own choice would be A Mid summer Night's Dream. I should like to see how the original actors managed this loveliest of pastorals, and to hear ...

... By Horace Horsnell Fine and Dandy THIS new musical show at the Saville justifies its name. It is so fine and dandy that playgoers to whom limelight and colour, song and dance, appeal more strongly than wit and burlesque, will have no cause for disappointment. They are richly catered for. It would seem that the closer austerity presses on the lay side of the footlights, the greater the latitude ...