Arts Theatre’s New Discovery

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 31

Arts Theatre’s New Discovery

QUAINT PLAY BY SELF-TAUGHT MAN A secondhand bookseller from Step- ; ney, a man who is self-taught, for in his 30 years of roughing it in the East End he has sold newspapers, been an office boy, and known what it is to be “up against things," is the author of an interesting play, “Belle; or What’s the Bother?” presented by the Stage Society at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, last month. His name is Ernest George. It is a name that must now be added to the Stage Society’s proud list of notable “discoveries,” which includes R. C. Sherriff, John van Druten, Ashley Dukes and even Shaw, George Moore and Yeats. It is a play of authentic East End life. So “foreign” is it to West End audiences that the programme includes a glossary of Cockney slang—words like “clobbered” and “kip” (bed), “lopy” and “spruce” (lie). Much of the language, too, is lurid Billingsgate, which needs no glossary, and most of the time the characters bicker and call one another all the names they can think of. The constant quarrelling grows wearisome before the end, and the first act is cluttered up with characters that have little to do with the rest of the play. Yet, with all its technical faults and lack of polish, this story of a masterful working woman’s jealous fear for the safety of her daughter’s honour fascinates. Here are people who have words to express everything except their real finer feelings. There are a dozen clever cameos of life, presented with keen insight, observation, and shrewd Cockney humour.