... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE DU BARRY WAS A LADY.-- Although there is plenty of crudely farcical fun-- quite enjoyable if one is in the mood for it-- in this American musical-comedy at His Majesty's about a cloak-room attendant who, having seen a film about Madame Du Barry, dreams that he is not only at Versailles, back in the eighteenth century, but is Louis XV himself, I found my self not only ...

... NOVELS IN VARYING MOODS -By Vernon Fane Civil Servants and the Blitz Miss Georgette Heyers Literary Diversion A Weighty 7\[ovel by Taylor Caldwell A 7\[ew Story by Barbara Goolden TWO things are certain about the author of DARKNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR (Collins. 8s. 6d.); he knows a great deal about the London blitzes, and he knows a great deal about the activities of temporary Civil Servants. ...

... The Old School Tie of Massachusetts Portrait of an American Gentleman An Elizabethan Slave Ella M aillart's Seafaring Mercury on Campden Hill -By Vernon Fane IN the erroneous hope that it might afford them some protection in a possible libel action, some authors put a note at the beginning of a work of fiction to the effect that all the characters therein are imaginary, and have no connection ...

... HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND HORTICULTURE American History Without Tears The Last Bourbon King A Peripatetic Raconteur A Garden Book to Cherish -By Vernon Fane JUDGING by the ever-increas ing clangour about recon struction and the post-war world, anybody would think that this war was as good as won. As a counter to the soothsayers of the Sunday and weekly Press, and the cohorts of wishful- thinking ...

... Books Reviewed by Noel Thompson IF you want to read the private diary of a public man, I recommend Off The Record (Hutchinson, 10s. 6d.). At the beginning of the war, Charles Graves, then writing a daily column for the Daily Mail, started putting down at night all his doings, the people he had met, the subjects dis cussed, and his private reactions. Much of this material could not be ...

... Murder from Memory (Ambassadors) STRANGE that in a world war, with its universal killing, so many plays should be produced, for alleged entertainment and relaxation, in which killing is the main motive. I am not suggesting that in war time only the lighter stuff should be seen on the stage; that would rule out, for instance, Hamlet and Macbeth. But it is hardly necessary to add that ...

... TU By Horace Horsnell Sky High (Phoenix) Those two queens ot Burlesque, iviesaames Hermione Baddeley and Hermione Ging- old, have become popularly associated as a kind of dual constellation in the vaudeville heavens, where they shine with mutual and derisive glory. When last we saw them fooling there together, the slogan was Rise Above It Now it is Sky High, which seemed to promise even higher ...

... By Horace Horsnell Blossom Time (Lyric) Sadler's ff ells Ballet (Netc) LET it be said at once, since comparisons need not be odious, that Blossom Time is Lilac Time in another part of the old Vienna garden. These two operettas are not so much independent works as variations on a similar theme-- genius at odds with life and love. Schubert, the hero of both, is the same inspired innocent who ...

... : Reviewed by Noel Thompson THE war, with its variegated intermingling of tragedy and comedy, has given writers a thousand themes on which to draw. It will probably be some years before the really great novel with a war background appears, but meantime the stopgaps of well-done true-life pictures are building up the background. Amy J. Baker takes the journey back to England of the Riviera ...

... Wild Rose (Princes) By Horace Horsnell THIS fond old musical play, first seen, heard, and whistled in London in 1921, under the name of Sally, was even then something of a pastiche. Its action passes in New York in the early 1900's. So now we get, as it were, a double throw-back in manners and melody. It belongs to the gentler vaudeville school. The composer, Jerome Kern, links on to the pre ...

... Thunder Rock is Filmed Michael Redgrave and Frederick Valk in their original parts as Charleston, the 1940 Escapist, and Dr. Kurtz, Escapist of an Earlier Century Just over two years ago, Thunder Rock written by a young American, Robert Ardrqy, was produced at the Neighbourhood Theatre in Kensington. Its success was immediate and very soon it was transferred to the West End. The play has now ...

... By Herbert Farjeon On Approval (Aldwych) HERE are two revivals, the first (unex pectedly) being a revival of the theatre orchestra. This takes one back. Let us hope it also takes one forward. For, speaking generally, live and lively fiddlers are jollier, though admittedly more expensive, than inanimate and unexhilarating grinding- machines, exercising over the atmosphere of the auditorium a ...