... The Golden Ball. By Ruth Manning- Sanders. (Robert Hale. Ltd. 9s. 6d.) ^IMflS is an interesting story of the -A circus, which provides a back ground for the two main charac ters-- Alun Rees, who takes up circus life after being found by a family of travelling performers when he had run away from an unhappy home in Wales and Lotto, who comcs from circus stock, his father having been a Spanish ...

... THE WHOLE CRAZY VISTA Theatrrcraft. By Haraid Mclvill. (RocUifT, 21s.) Described as The A to Z of Show Business, this book is certainly by someone who knows what he is talking about. Mr. Melvill is already well known as a scenic artist; he has also been an actor and stage-manager, beginning with raw, tremulous, tentative and wonderful seasons with the lerrys, and sampling everything from ...

... FROM KITCHEN TO FOOTLIGHTS p* VERY OTHER SUNDAY, by Jean Rennie (Arthur Barker, 12s. 6d.), is the auto biography of a Scots girl with ambition, a good education, a voice and character, who warned to be a singer on the stage but was obliged by circumstances to spend years as a domestic. She confesses to being a sensitive, highly-strung girl, who was never allowed time to give way to shyness or ...

... SAVOYARD MEMORIES WINIFRED LAWSON, once Ieading soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, has written a cheerful autobiography in A Song to Sing-O! (Michael Joseph, 21s.). Indeed, it abounds in merry anecdotes--many against herself--and all the while is redolent of a happy and good-natured personality. The book begins in 1922, on the first night of a revival of Princess Ida at the ...

... Year. She will continue to appear in The Remarkable Mr. Penny- packer at the New after the wed ding. I Maive Hewson is to produce 1 Wild Violets for the Biadford Players at the Alhambra, Bradford, in April. She recently undertook the production of Brigadoon for the Keighlcy Amateur Operatic Society. ...

... . MR. JEROME'S BOOK. A fine coloured reproduction of de László's portrait of Jerome K. Jerome serves as frontispiece to that versatile man's volume styled My Life and Times, issued at 16s. net by Hodder and Stoughton. To us what Mr. Jerome says about his Times is as interesting as are tho details of his Life proper, though there may bo varying grades of importance in tlie book. Certainly ...

... ON THE MISSISSIPPI Showboats. by Philip Graham. (University of Texas Press. 25s.) This is a record of an entirely American institution, for the o'd show- boa is were first established in 1831 at Pittsburgh and ended at St. Louis, where the last of (he race is still preserved as a souvenir. Their incep tion was due to a London actor who emigrated to America with his family in 1827. His name was ...

... DANCING AND REVOLUTION Borzoi. By Igor Scbwezoff. (Hodder and Stoughton. 10s. 6d.) This book, published for the second time on May 8,' is a re-issue of the autobiography which won the publishers' £1,000 prize in 1934 and was first published the following year. It is no less interesting now than it was then; it is a book which may well be destined for immortality, not only among the literature ...

... THEATRE BOOKSHELF THE PRODUCER'S PLACE The Art and Science of Stage Management By Peter Goffin. (J. Garnet Miller, Ltd. 12s. 6d.) Apart from its value and interest to the student, this is a book which could be read with profit by those producers who seek only to express themselves, forgetting that the essential quality of any work of art is its homogeneity and that a stage production is more ...

... A LANCASHIRE DRAMATIST What I Ha\c Had. By Harold Brighouse (Harrap, 12s. 6d.) Mr. Brighouse's bock exudes cheerfulness and optimism. There are in its pages many anecdotes about the idiosyncrasies of famous people mostly dramatists- and merry limes at the Swan Club. Manchester, i and other clubs, where any member could insult another freely and no harm done. There are memories of Sir Frank ...

... MOVEMENT The Master* of Movement on the Stage. By Rudolf Laban. Mac- donald and Evans. 30s. This is noi a book for the ordinary reader. In fact, the words abstruse, recondite and others will occur to anybody but a really earnest student who tackles it. Yet there is much in it for those with the intelligence and perspicacity to grasp its meaning. Mr. Laban has, of course, genuine mastery of his ...

... THE TELEVISION ANNUAL FOU 1953. Edltmd by Kcnntth Ballmy. (odhams Press, Ltd. 9s. 6d.) In 160 pages, with more than 120 illustrations, the fascinating story of TV is told by Maurice Gorham. Leslie Mitchell, Jeanne Heal, and other experts in the medium, and there are profiles of many leading personalities. A review of the year includes many stills from notable productions, making a strong ...