... MR. TOAD of Toad Hall is so richly universal a character that I am surprised that he has not been detected by the astute Mr. Disney, an honour which sometimes proves disastrous and on occasion superb. Probably Mr. Disney's myopia is London's gain, for it has been left to the Stratford-on-Avon players to bring the character to town at the Princes Theatre with proper pomp, tempered by gentle ...

... THE SPOOKY FUTURE Freda Brace Fochhart SUITABLY unabashed by all the ill- timed, ill-judged and muddle-minded outcry over Nineteen-Eighty-Four, the B.B.C. is daring to look even further into the future. Sunday's play, The Voices, is a political thriller set in the year 2021. The Voices are embodied by a cast of experts, headed by Walter Rilla, Carl Bernard, Willoughby Goddard and Ursula ...

... D. B. Wyndliam Lewis ASCENDING St. James's Street the other day with an Alpinist acquaintance, we noted without surprise that his outlook became more ethical the higher we climbed-- the gradient being about I in 150, we guess-- until, when we neared the summit just outside White's, a sort of mystic aura surrounded his noble Nordic pan. This is of course a routine trick with Alpinists on any ...

... At Fifty. It's Love From A Stranger fun I If it It AN Oxford professor named England, a psychologist, says that women do not really know what they are in love with. He thinks that they behave and feel very much as the birds in the mating season. They get an internal urge to create and found a family and they look around for the most eligible male. If he happens to come their way, well, it's ...

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... SOME PORTRAITS IN PRINT Being the lucubrations oF your most obedient scribe, Mr. Gordon Beckles NOTHING about women's dress is more fanciful than the times of the year chosen for the unveiling of its secrets. On a broiling August day a woman can shiver excitedly with delight at the prospect of tweeds and heavy woollens; while, when shivering with authentic cold, she can prepare her mind to be ...

... Fri'tlti Miriico Lockhart CELESTIAL choirs have found a rival menace as audience irritants in the chorus of commentary so often believed necessary to-day. The commentator's nagging voice is of course nothing new. It can be traced back to the earliest talking travelogues which it did to death. Now it has been reintroduced and multiplied in the wake of two other narrative fashions-- the semi ...

... Colonel Ustinov Bowler Hatted PETER USTINOV is leaving his Four Colonels at the end of next week. He will be replaced by Clifford Mollison, who at first glance would appear to be an odd choice, though an interesting one. The new lead can be visualised in certain facets of the role with ease, but not in others. Yet what actor now available could do it better? Robert Morlev must be excluded, and ...

... DINING OUT I. BICRERSTAFF THERE has come into my hands some of the instructions given by a leading West End restaurant to the staff. It makes most admirable reading. Meal time, says one of the first rules, should be a time of S rest and pleasure for the Customer. Do not mention present ...

... c POLITICS Last Week and the Next THE STATE AND ITS SERVANTS. BY FITZWILLIAM r IT would be a mistake to think that we have reached the end of our troubles with the police and uniformed labour such as warders, postmen, firemen, and, to a limited extent, soldiers and sailors. It is easy to exaggerate the unrest, and it is worth pointing out that, taking them en bloc, the direct servants of the ...

... BYSTANDER. 1 COMMENTXS..I 31n y\ r-- A Political Boomerang THE State Minister of New South Wales decided that school children should salute the Union Jack once a week. Whereupon, the Labour Council urged the working-classes to keep their children from school on saluting days until the ceremony was over. And now, of course, the children of the workers look upon the Union Jack as the most ...

... It RACING -NOTIONS!! I 1 BY CARBINE 7 koyal Lancer's Luck ROYAL LANCER was, surely, one of the luckiest winners of the St. Leger we have ever seen. I do not mean to imply that he did not win fairly and squarely as the race was run; but what a slice of good fortune for him to have escaped the opposition of Captain Cuttle and Tamar, either of whom at his best would have made a sad mess of last ...