... CHANGE OF POLICY AT ILFRAC0MBE ILFRACOMBE Council have de- L cided to invite tenders for all 1 of their entertainments, whic-h have been municipally controlled in recent years. Theii entertainment rights in clude the Victoria Pavilion, where summer shows are staged the Alex- andra Theatre, the home of reper- tory; the Holiday Inn. with its licensed bars and dance hall the bandstand, from which ...

... by ANTHONY COOKiMAN THAT you will see Miss Pat Kirkwood interrupt a dance to drain a pint mug of beer without drawing breath is a sufficient reason for going to the Prince of Wales Theatre. There are other reasons. Chrysanthe mum coming after the lamentable Mr. Venus is something of a surprise, a musical comedy which has got hold of an amusing idea and exploits it with an exhilarating sense of ...

... by ELSPETH GRANT THE VICTORIAN English gentleman abroad was pretty sure of himself. He knew that the English ruled the earth, he was quite unaware that they gave rise to much covert hilarity and mirth, and he could rest assured that if the natives proved hostile Her Majesty's Government would send a gun boat. Kenneth More in the title role of The t iff Of Fractured Jaw has just the right [' ...

... by SIRIOL HUGH-JONES AS THE LITERARY YEAR chugs towards its close, and the people who know about such things begin to tot up totals of words and titles and Ten Best Books, so my prejudices become more clearly defined. I find I am developing a profound reluctance to read books set in the bleak future, when civiliza tion as we know it has come to an appalling end and men with antennae growing ...

... CINEMA Recent Productions THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA (Release: Nov. 10) describes the difficulties encountered by one Townsend Harris, in the 1880's, in getting himself accepted as the first US consul-general to Japan. With John Wayne as the consul; Eiko Ando as the geisha who is put into his house to spy but learns to love him. John Huston directs. Shot entirely in Japan, the film is highly ...

... Mainly about People by ANGELA MILNE THE real heroines of literature, it seems to me, are not the women in the books but some of the ones who write them. My husband sits down to his desk at nine every morning, I heard a writer's wife purr. Snorted a housewife-novelist, Yes, but he's a man! She would join me in saluting a domesticated woman who has never written a book before but now turns ...

... BEXHILL RECEIPTS WERE UP ON 1957 WHILE attendances at Bextull's summer show, Starlight Rendezvous, were slightly down on the figures for 1957, receipts were up! The increased receipts have been accounted for by the fact that while the overall figure of ad mission was lower, more people took higher priced seats at the show. Total admissions were 49,849, compared with 50,021 in 1957. and ...

... by ANTHONY COOKMAN WHEN WE ARE BORED in the theatre we charitably assume that something has got temporarily out of the playwright's control. The author of Waiting For Godot must be unique in that he bores us according to plan and, astonishingly, gets away with it. Mr. Samuel Beckett, it is now pretty well understood, is the poet of the transient mood. If the mood is to stay fixed long enough ...

... by ANTHONY COOKiMAN EVEN good dramatists are not to be restrained from turning novels into plays. It has never been clear to me why they should fall like ninepins before this particular temptation, unless of course the novel is The Good Companions and a duty is owed to the nation. Almost the best that can generally be hoped for, as experienced play goers know, is that a story readers have ...

... Mr. Raye goes straight by ELSPETH GRANT MR. DANNY KAYE, under Mr. Peter Glenville's direction, proves himself an extremely good straight actor and gives an impressive performance, unmarred by grimace or twitch, in Me And The Colonel-- a screen adaptation by Messrs. S. N. Behrman and George Froeschell of Mr. Franz Werfel's play, Jacobowsky And The Colonel. I do not know why the title has been ...

... War Correspondents' Battlefield at Plevna The Uncensored Russo-Turkish War in the Balkan At a time when military controversy is raging about who committed the armour of the 10th Corps at El Alamein, who said what to whom when the German tanks ran wild in the Ardennes, and who pushed aside expert advice before Arnhem, we are reminded of the agelessness of all such military controversies by ...

... The Pattern of Village Life Reviewed by ANGELA MILNE COUNTRY folk at heart, that's us British; rustics, manqués or not, with yearnings for the parish pump and a welcome for the writer who can show us what we all know-- that village life is so much fuller and more fascinating than the city stuff. At the moment, nobody is doing this better than Miss Read, the schoolmistress of Fairacre; no ...