... AFTER Oklahoma! Drury Lane began to live inadventurously and prosperously on American musicals, one sure-fire hit following another. Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I--we aged but they did not. They ran and ran. But with Plain And Fancy an element of risk crept into the business. Rogers and Hammerstein did not write it, nor have they backed the latest import, in some ways an even more ...

... LONDON'S parks and squares are far-famed, and deservedly; their green charm is apparent to every visitor. But the city has another, more secret landscape-- her mysterious network of back-gardens. William Sansom's new novel The Loving Eye (Hogarth Press, 13s. 6d.) is set in just such a panorama. His thirty-nine year old hero, Matthew Ligne, spends much time gazing out. This is what he sees: ...

... MR. ROGER MACDOUGALL and Mr. Ted Allan invite us in Double Image to guess and guess, over and over again, when Mr. Richard Attenborough may be David impersonating Julian, when he may be Julian impersonating David and whether there is any such person as David-- or Julian. This sounds more like a nursery game than a play; yet as a game it is likely to fill the Savoy for a long time with people ...

... RARE, these days, are anonymous novels, but here is one. To Madame Solario (Heinemann, 15s.) mystery attaches-- who is the author? It seems, moreover, the work of a practised hand. Hardly less mysterious is the heroine, this delicious creature-- Nathalie to her friends, Nelly to her redis covered brother. The time is September 1906, the setting Cadenabbia, on Lake Como-- playground, in those ...

... UNDER MILK WOOD comes to the New Theatre loaded with honours to maintain. Dylan Thomas delighting in indelicate jokes has amused himself by lifting the hot tin roof off a small Welsh town. Among the inhabitants exposed to Thomas's sharp satirical fancy are, above, Capt. Cat (William Squire) hearing the songs of the siren (Polly Garter by Diana Maddox), not for the first time while, below, ...

... by Elizabeth Bowen ROSE MACAULAY'S latest (and possibly greatest) novel is The Towers Of Trebizond (Collins, 13s. 6d.). It is also her first since The World My Wilderness, published in 1950. Miss Macaulay is one of the few writers of whom it may be said, she adorns our century, bringing to it high qualities-- style, wit, laughter and learning-- which on the whole we connect with happier times. ...

... MR. JOHN DIGHTON'S new farce, Man Alive! at the Aldwych, has come in for rather rough critical handling, but I would give it two-- though assuredly not three-- cheers. It has a good farcical idea, and the author has striven gallantly to work it out in terms of its own logic. But the consequent strain on his ingenuity has unhappily been so severe that he has neglected to consider his comedians. ...

... Anthony Cookman Youthful playgoers incline to pooh-pooh the great Shaw. He was one of their parents' gods, and they dislike the reek of stale incense. It will, I should guess, be some while yet before they get round to re-discovering him for themselves. Meanwhile Misalliance at the Lyric, Hammersmith, may help them a little on the way round. It is one of the less familiar plays; it had a big ...

... OEDIPUS COMES TO BEANKSHIRE ACTORS and producers in the jolly Edwardian days, and for long after, were the despair of serious authors. They might, as readers, profess enormous admiration for plays that sought to lay bare the mysteries of the universe, but as men of the theatre they knew better than to put such plays on to the stage. The boot now seems to be on the other foot. Mr. T. S. Eliot ...

... Anthony Cookman ONE gets more and more nervous in the presence of dear old ladies. There is nothing, according to the modern play wright, of which they are not capable. Like Miss Mabel, they may proceed in an aura of parochial respectability from the forging of a will to the doing-in of the wicked sister, whose money the will distributes with a noble beneficence. Or, prinked out in old lace, ...

... At the Theatre Anthony Cookman THERE is much to be said, as the Edwardians knew, for theatre- going as against play-going. For instance, no West End theatre today inspires a more comfortable confidence in its fixed policy than the Saville. Mr. John Clements has created the impression that whatever play he chooses to include in his series of revivals will be given good acting and intelligent ...

... Book Reviews IN The Hungry Leopard (Heinemann, 15s.) Mary Borden is giving us of her best. This, her latest novel, is also her twenty-second. I recall, as some older readers may also do, the impact made by her first which was Jane-- Our Stranger. Since then, the author has ranged round, never without effect, among a striking number of scenes and subjects. In one way, the book we have now in ...