... 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 ...

... I AM quite aware that it is unforgivable to review a book before one has finished reading it, but, all the same, that is what I am proposing to do with DOCTOR PHILLIGO (Michael Joseph. 12s. 6d.). I am three-quarters of the way through it, and even if some thing in the remaining few pages makes me change my mind and write a second opinion next week, I want to recommend the book to you right ...

... EVERY Sunday there is a column in one of our great newspapers that can be read with pure delight, whatever the other news. It is dis creetly signed B. T., and those are the initials of a man about whom George Moore said that he was the only living writer whose style he envied. B. T.'s weekly para graphs are nature notes a progressive chronicle of the year as it passes in the open air. He ...

... TO find a genre, to prove that it was rewarding and to stick to it, was, in the past century, an ambition that many writers and artists achieved, though, even in the heyday of Victorian Academies, there were those bold spirits who said that when you had seen one sheep in a snow-storm, you'd seen them all. Now a bolder age calls for variety, and writers particularly seem stimulated by that call ...

... BRITISH barmaids have the twin duties, traditionally, of being buxom and benevolent, but benevolent within rigidly prescribed limits of taste and good sense. Mr. Adrian Alington's novel is the life- story of just such a being whose salty good humour, physical strength and refusal to be put upon add up to a sum total of an almost perfect example of the species. ROSIE TODMARSH (Chatto and ...

... MR. BERT THOMAS once published a charming little book of drawings, osten sibly made by a child, of famous contemporary figures, whom he divided into the nice and the nasty people. Pro minent in the first category was M. Maisky, who was described, as best I can remember, as a man who twinkled and smiled, and liked to see everyone enjoying themselves. There is little in the first volume of M. ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE WHILE THE SUN SHINES (Globe). The theatrical event of the season has unquestionably been Terence Rattigan's While the Sun Shines. This young R.A.F. officer is a dramatist of genius. So far he has chosen to express himself only in light comedy; but he does so in flawless fashion, with the additional asset that his comedies run for months and even years. While the Sun ...