... . by CYRIL BUTCHER IS it good television? That 's what we have to ask ourselves, all the time, in our approach to this still new medium. It is not a bit of good to consider it in terms of theatre, radio or cinema. For if television is going to fulfil all those glowing promises that are being made on its behalf, it will have to develop a mind of its own and realise that it lives or dies ...

... X . By Elizabeth Jenkins. (Sampson Low I0s.-6d.) THIS book consists of biographical studies, supported by just sufficient documentation, of six women who have shocked the age in which they lived by various kinds of criminal activities. There is the notorious and slightly fantastic figure of Sarah Rachel Leverson, who achieved fame and wealth by opening the first advertised beauty parlour in ...

... (Royal Court Theatre Club THIS is one of the most famous theatres in the history of the stage since 1900. It was here that Granville Barker and Vedrenne sponsored the Thousand Performances, the season that brought Shaw to the zenith; here, in the 'twenties, Barry Jackson staged Back to Methuselah. The Court, later a cinema and damaged in the war, is reclaimed now for the stage. When it opened, ...

... with C. A. LEJEUNE came into being as the result of an accident. T. E. B. Clarke, Ealing Studios' star author, was sent home to write one film story and found himself writing quite another. His instructions were to work on the script of Pool of London, but one of the minor characters in the piece caught his impish fancy to such a degree that there and then he began to create a fresh film ...

... Old Vic) J. C. TREWIN 1 First Choice THIS is Illyria, lady. Indeed it is, governed by that noble Duke, in nature as in name (Alec Clunes, the Orsino, has the tone of high romance), and with a surprising rout of fantastics for the May-morning jest: an Aguecheek who is a knight of the rueful countenance, with a telescopic neck and a mildewed air; a Toby who is an acrobatic old codger, a husky ...

... POINT OF DEPARTURE (Lyric, Hammersmith) AT the moment Jean Anouilh, from Paris, is the fashionable dramatist. In the present play, Kitty Black's excellent trans lation of Eurydice, he says in effect and depressingly Why worry about life when you can die With the best will in the world, I don't feel that this is either a help ful or a reasonable view. However, if you can detach yourself from ...

... Do we need WRITERS OR PLAYWRIGHTS? asks J. THE WIN THIS is, apparently, a wild spring in the West End theatre. Brecht, so they say, bless them, is showing us how we can reform the stage, and a Writers' Theatre is telling us firmly that plays must be written as well as acted. Does that sound obvious Let me develop it the idea is that your dramatist must also be a writer, that his play must have ...

... The Vagabond King Plaza Oreste, the Maltese tenor, makes Francois Villon a jolly, bouncing fellow, with a grand opera voice and few signs of poetical, political, or financial inhibition. The paint is a bit wet on the new numbers, but the old tunes are still good tunes. Veteran stage actor Walter Hampden, as a monarch without delusions, practically steals the show. On the Threshold of Space ...

... . By Phyllis Bentley. Gollancz 12s. 6 d.) Seven short stories of Yorkshire life in different periods, arranged with the effect of continuity. ...

... with C. A. LEJEUNE IT is notable that the one minute that stands out most sharply from all the 152 others in Cecil B. de Mille's circus film. The Greatest Show on Earth, is a private joke between old film friends and has nothing whatsoever to do with the circus. The picture is well set in its rowdy, crowded, gaudy, raucous, breath less, highly-coloured, vulgar and exciting course. Dorothy ...

... By Florence Preston. (Cassells; 15s.) The publishers promise a New Zealand first novel that has the zest for life which springs from an invigorating, expanding country, but the book turns out disappointingly to be a psychologically-minded study of an unhappy marriage that could have happened almost any where. The priggish Charles is a doctor who ieeks perfection in his young wife and slowly ...

... Dumb-Bells and Carrot Strips By Mary Macfadden. (Gollancz; 18s.) Bernarr (sic) Macfadden was an American who spent his life hammering physical culture and fitness into his countrymen and, where possible, the rest of man kind. Into his crusade {an affair of some sense and much nonsense) were coerced his family or, rather, were created for the purpose, for he married Great Britain s Perfect ...