"NELL GWYNNE."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18897, 12 January 1927, Page 7

"NELL GWYNNE."

THE LOVES OF A KING. History recordu that "Pretty, witty Nell" had red hair; history has a swu% unrelenting manner of eispression, it is true, but no doubt that had 11 lot to.do with it. There is no more fascinating-romance in all English history that the' love of a. Stuart King foi the little p ebeian who ruled him and his haughty Coi rt- with her biting wit and her bewitching ways, ruled Lady Castlemaine, her' chief rival for Charles" affections, as only one won an can rule andther." Every* one who hag ever taken up a book of English history,'is (familiar with the name- of Nell Gw'ynn'e; for. all her faults, we have a subtle sympathy ;for her; the influence of her charm extends a|3 far down as to our own day, an<L •«•<> atili eagerly read anything new. there, is'.{oh jnd iboufthis hoydenish beauty. Plays and drama, s havo been, written about her, and now comes the pioture, produced by that pictoriall wizard, Herbert Wilcox, and with Dorothy Gish in the title role, will be presented at '.Everybody's next Monday.. The picture, although »n auth'ontio record of what actually! happened in old • London; Teadsag - entrancing and romantic a story as ever was conceived.in the brain of some imaginative novelist; it flashes with a fluent, easy wit, it sparkles with unconventional splendour, 'there is drama enough to satisfy the-most j insatiate, drama which begins in a sunburst of brilliant promise, and ends so abruptly, so pathetically for the little orange girl. Though the Court of the Merrie Monardb was not particularly notable for its austeie morality; more, indeed, for its lax unconiventionality, the picture "Noll Gwynno," \vhile retaining the essential spirit, of the tinie, is such, as the most unsophisticated can its finer points to the full. Both; Wilcox, the director, and Dorothy Gish, the <itar, attend to that. _ The production is ■ quaiiit with all the satisfied poverty of 01d"L'on<kon, and magnificent with all the regal splendour of a seventeenth century Court, and.bo&Bts I an adherence to custom, .costume,,and- manner..of .speech.and address which make) it all'the more pleasing and interesting. Ai3' Sweet Nell, "Miss Gish gives a .vivacious, lartistio, and ! perfectly sympathetic portrays) 1,-the Lely picture.come to life. The: box plhns-for this outstanding attraction open at IChe Bristol Piano Company on Thursday nrofaing.