... COVENT GARDEN MADAM BUTTERFLY On January 17, the Covent Garden Opera Trust presented a new production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly. Delight and enchantment for the ear and the eye are strong in Robert Helpmann's production. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, though not able entirely to disguise her markedly European features, is as satisfying a Butterfly as one could wish for. Her transition from ...

... THE NEW THE MISER On January 17, by arrangement with Bronson Albery, the Joint Council of the National Theatre and the Old Vic (in association with the Arts Council) presented the Old Vic Theatre Company in Miles Malleson's adaptation of Molière's The Miser. This is a roaring, muttering, jerky-jointed old Miser, something like a marionette: a caricature and a realistic study in turn and ...

... THE GATEWAY PALM OF MY HAND On January 17, Moorhall Productions presented a new play by Irving St. John, Palm of My Hand. Up to a point, Palm of My Hand is first-rate melodrama with plenty of action, some pointed dia logue, and characterisation which, even if on the colourful side is con vincing. When Johnny Shannon, blessed with the blarney of his native Ireland, walks into the com ...

... BRIGHTON PREMIERE A LADY MISLAID On December 16, at the Royal, Brighton, H. J. Barlow and Anthony Hawtrey presented a new comedy by Kenneth Home entitled A Lady Mislaid. With a missing wife and ugly rumours in the village, it is not surprising that when ihe curtain rises the garden is full of police men digging for evidence. These are the bare bones of Mr. Home's plot, plus a small parcel, ...

... ROYAL STRATFORD SPRING-HEELED JACK On January 17, Gabriel Toyne presented the play by Tod Slaughter and Geoffrey Carlile Spring-Heeled Jack. The terrors wrought in the neigh bourhood of Epping Forest by the crazy, spring-heeled murderer, and the mystery of his identity, are turned into hearty, forthright melo drama by Tod Slaughter and Gabriel Toyne and their gallant company The honest ...

... TELEVISION CAMERAS GO EAST The television relay from the Royal, Stratford, of Tod Slaughter's Spring Heeled Jack added nothing to the argument for or against theatre relays. The Royal's audience on this occasion was so much a part of the play, and the atmosphere of the theatre so much a part of the setting, that it is difficult to imagine a successful broadcast of this melodrama with out ...

... GUILDFORD PREMIERE LITTLE EARTHQUAKE On January 16 the Guildford Theatre Company presented the play by Beatrice Mayor, entitled Little Earthquake. This play hovers uneasily between farce and the ironic Ronald-Mac- ks^zie style of comedy, with occa sional excursions into a kind of philosophic mysticism. Conse quently. it lacks both cohesion and credibility. The producer, David Eadie, and ...

... THE EMBASSY PARTY MANNERS On January 17, Envoy Productions, Ltd., in association with the Arts Council of Great Britain, and under the direction of Anthony Hawtrey, presented here the comedy by Val Gielgud, entitled Party Manners. I hope this will have shown you that we still live in a country in which it is possible for us to be funny about politicians without being rude, said the ...

... FROM BR0ADSTAIRS DICKENS AND FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN The following suggestion has been sent by Frederick B. Salt, chairman of the Broadstairs and St. Peter's Urban District Council, to the secre tary of the Festival of Britain, 1951 I anticipate that one of the build ings which will be erected on the South Bank of the Thames in con nection with the Festival of Britain, will be a theatre, and I ...

... AT NORWICH SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL On January 14 at the Maddermarket the Maddermarket theatre Trust, Ltd., presented the Norwich Players in a revival of Sheridan's The School for Scandal. There is special interest in this first production here by Lionel Dunn, who is directing the Players in view of the toriheoming departure of Nugent Monck on a lecture tour in the West Indies. Right nobly ...

... HORACE COLLINS THANKS ON RETIREMENT In the current number of The Theatre Industry, the monthly magazine of which he will continue to be editor, Horace Collins expresses his gratitude for the friendly messages and donation offered to him on his retirement from the secretaryship of the Society of West fcnd Managers ana the Theatrical Managers' Associa tion. I am much moved he writes, by ...

... GALLERY FIRST NIGHT ARE DRAMATIC CRITICS REALLY NECESSARY? A. Beverley Baxter, M.P., dramatic critic for the Evening Standard, spoke on Are Dramatic Critics Really Necessary? at the Gallery First Nighters' Club, Duke of Argyll, on January 15. Charlotte Hastings, authoress of Bonaventure, now showing at the Vaudeville, was in the chair. There are only two sorts of critics, observed ...