The Play

HAMLET'S CLOTHES ARE NOT IMPORTANT
Hamlet
rpHERE are very few lounge suits and no golfing stockings about this modern dress Hamlet, and the audience is not given the least impression of contemporary Europe in the production but rather of Empire Ruritania. In fact, the whole argument of whether Hamlet should be dressed Elizabethan, Renaissance or NeoGeorgian is utterly superfluous and rather puerile, because Hamlet is as periodless as any play ever constructed.
The Old Vic sensed this and wisely added no modern stunts (unless the wireless of the Fortinbras's military unit and the Army greatcoat of the Ghost could qualify), so that quickly attention removed itself from Clothes to the Man and the great drama, in its four-hour entirety (someone muttered eternity), swept over an enthusiastic audience without distraction.
Although layers of thought and many lesser aspects of the play were new lighted
Amusements
13 IM re 1K 1.4 Berkeley Street. May. 8505 Danielle Darrieux in her most brilliant comedy role, " Mademoiselle Ma Mere " (A) by this method, and although careful studies (too studied and not spontaneous enough in Alec Guinness's name part) by the cast made a magnificent, sombre, disturbing thing of this production, still this Hamlet seems not to have enough vigour to fire the imagination. Herbert Menges's haunting music, specially composed, stays longer in the memory. IRIS CONLAY.
Old Vic
Dangerous Corner
JB. PRIESTLEY is a rare man of
• achievement. He succeeds right from the start. His genius is of equal tempo. His first play is as brilliant as his last.
Dangerous Corner has ingenuity in construction that suggests years of stage-craft experience, but it was Mr. Priestley's first experiment with drama. There is a terrorstriking, awful, relentless, Yorkshire thoroughness with which the theme is worked out. Shred by shred every hidden skeleton is dragged out of the personal cupboards of each character in a corkscrew method that is unique. At the beginning of the play a nice, smug, little party of happy ordinary folk sits before you, before the end there is no vice, no perversion, no degradation which is not revealed to be part of those same pleasant-looking folk. No wonder the romanticist shoots himself.
But Mr. Priestley goes back on his first act, re-acts it again at the end with the conversation's dangerous corner avoided by the switch of the radio, and the skeletons remain quietly shut up in their cupboards, the romanticist keeps his illusions, and life goes on and on and on . . .
A play to make you suspect even your
bridge partner. How the London Mask Theatre have enjoyed themselves with it.
Westminster IRIS CONLAY.
Bobby Get Your Gun
SOMEWHERE in the middle of this
rather cloying souffle Mr. Bobby Howes appears, laden with the following apparently indispensable impedimenta : ping-pong balls, red ink, Gone with the Wind, and a Union Jack.
Such a collection seems to me in a way symbolical. Thus the ping-pong balls with a splash of red ink might easily symbolise the ebullient and very colourful chorus; Gone with the Wind interminable dialogue about nothing in particular; and the Union Jack the spirit of latter-day English musical comedy embodied in tap dancers, fatuous plot (why any?) and complete absence of satire.
However, the national emblem may also represent a few authentic traditions of our stage. Miss Bertha Belmore, for instance, guides the opening scenes with the deft touches of a commere. The doleful clowning of Mr. Wylie Watson remains a joy for ever. His two efforts at mime are quite the funniest things in the show.
For the rest, Gertrude Niesen rumbas effectively, and Diana Churchill though fluffy is delightfully refreshing. Be it noted how sharply a " straight " actress like Miss Churchill contrasts in her acting to those whose forte is song and dance.
Artistic decor amid lively sets constantly take the eye. The while a chorus tricked out in tasteful draperies form the prettiest bevy London has seen for some time Adelphi A. DE L. G.