ON CABARETS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 16, 9 April 1927, Page 21

ON CABARETS

A LONDON REVIEW IMPRESSIONS BY S. P. B. MAIS Ever since I have been a dramatic critic I have been puzzled about cabarets, writes S. P. B. Mais in the “ Theatre World.” They never seem to have asked or to have received serious constructive criticism. The notices w'hich they get in the press i always sound the note of moderated i transports. It may be that a critic, who is not shy of attacking - a play for which he has been given a free seat, i feels that he is abusing his host’s hospitality if he says anything derogatory about a show where he has eaten freely and drunk a bottle of champagne at the cabaret manager's expense. To criticise the performance adversely would be tantamount, in his eyes, to the sort of bad form one associates with an adverse criticism of the kitchen and cellar of a kindly host. If a critic feels like this about it, he ought to avoid the show altogether or insist upon paying his way. The latter course is not easy for any but the very rich, for the first point one thinks of in connection with cabarets is their expense. They are most definitely a luxury; the sort of amusement that one indulges in only on redletter days—the anniversary of one’s wedding, " Rugger ” night, or on a 21st birthday. That being so, they would seem to be immune from criticism, for no one is critical on a festival. Nor do I think that cabaret j audiences, on the whole, do indulge in ! criticism. The hour is late, the party i is determined to be hilarious at all costs in honour of the occasion, there is plenty to eat and drink, and, after all, the cabaret is only an interlude between dances, an opportunity for cooling down or indulging in conversation. They are prepared to applaud anything, and applaud they do, whatever the fare. 1 am not really concerned about the audiences. They pour money out like water, and really, in one way it is their own look-out if they fail to be amused. EXPERIMENTS On the other hand, I am very much concerned for the cabaret producers. They never seem quite to know what they are at. They try experiments, but usually only within a very limited range. At the Piccadilly they tried dropping the chorus girls, and they found that that did not pay. At the Metropole they tried a mixture of Nigel Playfair and A. P. Herbert, and found that their audiences, like Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek, cared nothing for good life. At the Cafe de Paris they have relied on expensive single turns and have had to turn people away practically every night since they opened. I have for the purposes of this article made a special tour of these cabarets to make sure that I am not talking about a cabaret system that is effete and dead. At the Piccadilly Revels I found .Anton Bolin and Phyllis Bedells, two of our most admirable ballet dancers, condemned to dance what they called a 4 ‘ Rugger ” ballet. I can conceive a ballet based on water-polo, tennis, fives, hunting, ping-pong, cricket, rowing, or almost any form of outdoor or indoor sport, but I cannot see a ballet in “ Rugger,” and beyond the fact that the chorus looked more attractive in broad-striped “ Rugger ” jerseys, which are now rapidly and wisely becoming' fashionable, than they did in anything else they wore, the ballet seemed to me to be a complete failure. For one second as Bolin knelt on one knee he looked like a scrum half about to throw the ball out of the scrum, but for the rest, the attempts at a line-out and a scrum were merely ludicrous, and made all sportsmen in the room .tremble with indignation and horror. To them the whole affair bordered on sacrilege. It mattered not a whit how gracefully Bedells capered about on tip-toe, or Bolin threw his handsome limbs wildly into the air. They bore no resemblance to “Rugger” players, and there was an end of it. There was a turn entitled “ Haute Ecole,” in which the girls, dressed mainly in white feathers, gave a very indifferent imitation of circus ponies in the ring, and there were two clowns Austel and Arthur, who for two-thirds of the show merely got in the way, and then miraculously woke up and did splendid acrobatic feats for which we forgave them their earlier silliness. Next came Nick Lucas, in a none too amiable mood because one table composed of gigglers put him right off his stride. They proved so disturbing an influence that he had to reprimand them, which did not add to our delight, or his or theirs. The girls struck me as less attractive than they used to be, and inclined to be slack about their clothes and lazy about their work. On the whole, I was glad when the cabaret which, was mercifully short, was over, and opportunity was given for dancing. The Kit-Cat Club Band keep admirable time and make a speciality of waltzes, a dance I adore. PRAISE FOR RITCHARD The star turn at the Mignight Follies was the dancing of Marjorie Moss and Georges Fontana, oi. whom I can only say that the male partner seems to do all the work, and repeats his one good trick, that of lifting and lowering his partner so smoothly that she looks like a wave, so often that I could have screamed. I am always, and always I hope shall be at the mercy of Elsa Macfarlane’s voice, which is the only one I know that is both bewitching in quality and crystalclear, but I cannot conceive any costume less likely to bring out the attractive qualities of the average English girl than that of the Red Indian. For the rest. I saw nothing of Norman Griffin, who has it in him to be really funny, and was agreeably surprised to find in Cyril Ritchard, whom I had hitherto regarded as a rather too good-looking singer, a real comedian. He seemed to be taking his job with a most commendable seriousness. In all fairness, I must admit that I missed the second half of the programme, which I am told is much the better, but I was unhappy about the effect on my critical faculty of the first half. The Cafe de Paris has for a long time been my favourite after-theatre rendezvous. A mood of complete serenity and content descends on me as I take my seat on the balcony and look down on the dancing crowds below. In the first place the girls who go there are by far the most attractive and the best dressed that I have ever seen in any ballroom in the country. The clientele at some cabarets give one the impression that they have emerged from a very dingy suburb for one night. They look self-con-scious and uncomfortable, and their clothes lack taste or distinction. At the Cafe de Paris they look as if they had been out all day with the Cottesmore or the Quorn. They all know each other. They are really the cream of modern society, and very rich and pure cream they are. The dancers at the other cabarets give one the impression that they have been sitting as models to H. M. Bateman. The dancers at the Cafe de Paris are portraits by Ambrose McEvoy, Cohen. Orpen and Lavery suddenly come to life. In this intimate atmosphere Nick Lucas comes into his own. His emotional voice steals insidiously into one’s heart, and we all become as he intends us to become, sentimental and romantic. He is not a performer on a stage, but one of us. singing and humming softly the sorts of songs that we would like to sing in privacy to our partners.