... The Banbury Nose (Wyndham's) By Horace Horsnell MR. Peter Ustinov must be getting tired of being told that he is a promising dramatist; but he is promising, if only in the sense that each new play he writes creates lively expectations of the next. He is young, though there is nothing callow about his work. Indeed, the striking thing about it is its maturity. l ne nesuauons or mcxpcncuuc of ...

... By Horace Horsnell Humply Duinpty (Coliseum) Cinderella (His Majesty's) PANTOMIME, like Punch, has never been what it was. The trouble is that, unlike Shakespeare and the Musical Brasses, it is not an acquired taste. Seen in youth, it is usually a case of love at first sight. Once an absolute monarch, as ribald as rollicking, King Panto has become a kind of constitutional cypher, and, like ...

... -.1 )l -fjWWVvinf 61 fl l- MENUS MONDAY Mixed Casserole Cauliflower au gratia Mashed Potatoes Ginger Biscuits Jam Pancakes TUESDAY Braised American Pork Cold Meat Cakes Slices of Potato and Carrots and Onions Mixed Vegetable Salad Mixed WEDNESDAY Macaroni Cheese Vegetable Soup Fried Tomatoes Savoury Pancake Steived Apples THURSDAY Salmon Rissoles Consomme Potato Hash Potato and Onion Salad f ...

... ''Peer Gynt (New) By Horace Horsnell MASTERPIECES of art that, for one reason or another, are not quite themselves present teasing problems. The world is littered with them. They range from the surviving fragments of Sappho's verse to the battered grimace of the tourist-haunted Sphinx. Here we have Ibsen's Peer Gynt, a dramatic fantasy written in 1867. This long episodic poem comes to us ...

... Happy and Glorious (Palladium) By Horace Horsnell ALTHOUGH it is a wartime production, this Musical Fanfare has a peace-time éclat. The somewhat grandiloquent title, Happy and Glorious, suits it. It is true Variety, neither highbrow nor low, but just what the general public wants. And since good news travels fast and far, the big Palla dium arena is packed twice daily. The artists who ...

... The Rest Is Silence at the Prince of Wales By Horace Horsnell IF, at Edinburgh in 1857, the Scottish jury that acquitted Madeleine Smith of murder could have foreseen this play, their verdict of Non Proven might conceivably have been more positive. They would thus have robbed the accused young lady of much notoriety, and generations of amateur criminologists of some agreeable speculation. As ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE JENNY JONES (Hippodrome).-- If it were not that Mr. George Black is the last man I should ever suspect of whimsicality, I would feel tempted to suggest that he arranged for the worst show and the best show he has ever produced to open within twenty-four hours, just by way of an odd sort of fun. Let us consider the bad one first and get it over. Jenny Jones has a ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE L-JOW ARE THEY AT HOME? (Apollo).-- I did not see Mr. J. B. Priestley's recent play about soldiers written for the sake of^civilians at home, but if it is as good as its converse, How Are They At Home?, it will do amply well and then some. The author in a programme note explains that it was decided to produce the play here in the ordinary way before the various ENSA ...

... INCOMPARABLY the finest production of the week is THAMES TRIUMPHANT (Studio. 15s.), a volume which is half text and half drawings in pen and pencil on a subject which seems as inexhaustible as the Seven Springs from which England's river starts. The text is a pleasant and discursive mixture of anecdote, historical fact and rambling reminiscence, whereas the line drawings are exquisitely ...

... THE most surprising thing about Mr. Lion Feucht wanger's new novel is its short ness, since this is an author who likes, in the common phrase, to spread himself, and who is seldom content, as in the present case, with a mere 200- odd pages. Nevertheless, I think that SIMONE (Hamish Hamilton. 8s. 6d.) will be one of his most lasting successes. In many ways it seems written by another man irom ...

... THE OPENING of the SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL at STRATFORD-ON-AVON The New London Stage Productions Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE SINCE returning to theatre-going after many painful weeks in hospital through being struck down by a taxi, I have been struck also by many far more pleasant things. One is the shrewdness and general capacity of those who present, produce, etc., the majority of the large- scale ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE PEER GYNT (New).-- By far the most im portant event for theatrical London since the victory over the flying bombs has allowed a return to a normal state of affairs (and even a bit better than that) has been the launching of the new Old Vic Company, with an important repertory and some distinguished players. With their first effort. Peer Gynt, I must confess that I was ...