... Books Reviewed by Noel Thompson 1 OUR gallant sailors are only ordinary human beings and hate to be looked on as a race apart. That is the message of Gilbert Hackforth- Jones in his book of short stories about the navy, which he has called One-One-One (Hodder and Stoughton, 7s. 6d.). But the more he tries to show they are ordinary, the more, to me, he shows them extraordinary. Readers of ...

... MYSELF AT THE PICTURES A Great Russian Film By James Agate LET it be laid down clearly and distinctly, without any iff-ing and aff-ing, as we used to say up North, that One Day if War, the Russian film, now showing at the Regal is by streets, miles, and any other unit of measure you can think of, the best documen tary ever made. The day chosen to be shot by the hundred and sixty Russian ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE WINTER GARDEN THEATRE.-- The suc cess of the Carl Rosa season at the Winter Garden continues, and is one of the outstanding musical events of the war. Enormous audiences crowd the theatre at every performance, and a Puccini work invariably seems to mean that there is not a vacant seat. I enjoyed a matinee of La Bohème vastly; the large orchestra played really well, and ...

... -Bv Vernon Fane Sir Seymour Hicks' Nineties were not Naughty Mr. E. B. White's Autobiographical Essays Mr. Robert Graves Reveals Milton to be a Crashing Bore A New Novel of Prostrate France IT would be hard to find to-day a more apt chronicler of the 'nineties, and especially of the theatre world of that time, than Sir Seymour Hicks, who makes it very clear from the start that he resents and ...

... A SELECTION OF FACT AND FICTION Mr. Frank Fenton's Vigorous Novel A Chatterton Biography A Romantic Story by Miss Naomi Royde Smith; Tips About Tots; Mr. Gerald Kersh's Exposition of Nazi Horrors A New Series of Live Books -By Vernon Fane AMONG the American masters of the brief phrase or the rolling Biblical period, I have found a name that is new to me, in Mr. Frank Fenton, whose A PLACE IN ...

... By Horace Horsnell The Desert Song (Prince of Wales) YOU may probably remember the land of Araby whose songs, in the good old pre crooner days, every drawing-room tenor worth his alt used to sing. It lies, one would say, somewhere between Doughty's exclusive Arabia Deserta and The Garden of Allah thrown open to the public by Mr. Robert Hichens. Its attractions have been modernised since the ...

... The FRENCH MOTIF in FACT and FICTION Combined Training and the Dieppe Raid Simenon Without Maigret Gangsters, Murders and Black Marketeers Fifth Column in Fiction -By Vernon Fane IN this unassuming account of adventure, sparingly described by one who was both spectator and participant, we cannot help feeling that achieve ment has surpassed intention. WE LANDED AT DAWN (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) was ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE KING LEAR (St. James's).-- To say, with truth, that there is now a boom in Shake speare does not lessen the courage of Mr. Donald Wolfit in deciding to bring to a close his season at the St. James's Theatre with some perform ances of King Lear. Of all Shakespeare's plays, this is in every respect the most formidable. I have seen a fair number of famous players in the ...

... By Horace Horsnell A Month in the Country (St. James's FEW plays can have had happier titles, or lent themselves more graciously to trans lation, than Turgenev's A Month in the Country. In these disjointed times, and among the mixed items in the theatre bill, this revival is refreshing. The country, of course, is Russia a hundred years ago, but its charm is universal and timeless, and its ...

... By Horace Horsnell A Little Bit of Fluff (Ambassadors) A THOROUGH farce, once in a way, does no one any harm. It clears the mind of cant, and refreshes one's sense of humour. That is if it rollicks, and does not dabble in mere persiflage. Its speech should be free, its action lively. The slapstick need not be spared. The characters may be larger than life, but their misfortunes, though dire, ...

... I By Horace Horsnell Sleeping Out (Piccadilly) How easy it is, when listening to the opening phases of the average farce, to forget What dire offence from amorous causes springs What mighty contests rise from trivial things The stark preliminaries are so devoid ol verbal graces and plausibility that one can hardly believe one's ears, still less that, from such perfunctory squalls, gales of ...

... Communism, Criticism, Loyal France and Wayward Sheep Mr. John Scott's Life in Russia A Journalist's Selection of Papers Miss Magdalen King-Hall's J\[ovel- Biography A Moving Tale of Occupied France Mr. E. B. White's Reflective and Humorous Essays -By Vernon Fane BEHIND THE URALS (Seeker and War burg. 7s. 6d.) is a book which will be quoted-- by both sides-- as the sort of argument about ...