Sir Nigel Playfair Writes Life Story

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 980, 24 May 1930, Page 24

Sir Nigel Playfair Writes Life Story

‘WIZARD OF HAMMERSMITH” ELLEN TERRY AND THE BOAT RACE Sir Nigel Playfair has written his memoirs to date under the title of “Hammersmith Hoy.” The volume is primarily the story j of its author's life. His history of j the Lyric Theatre has already been published. It has to be mentioned in : the present book, but it is put in its i place, and is not the sole*matter men-; tioned.

There is no reference to Sir Nigel’s adventures in Liverpool, where for a while he directed the affairs of the Playhouse, nor is there any reference to his adventures at the Regent and j Playhouse Theatres in London, al- i though why these should have been 1 omitted from the book when he frankly describes his misadventure with the Midnight Follies at the Metropole Hotel I cannot imagine (writes St. John Ervinel. Sir Francis Towle, the managing director of that and other hotels, had seen a performance ! of “Riverside Nights,” and thought j that Sir Nigel must organise a caba- I ret entertainment for him. Why Sir j Nigel ever consented to do this is a 1 mystery. He must have known that the kind of person who goes to cabaret entertainments, especially at mid- j night, is fit oily to be put into the nearest lethal chamber. However, i “with some misgiving.” he consented to oblige Sir Francis Towle.

We were a little downhearted, I must confess, by n. preliminary but only too truthful obiter dictum of Sir Francis at a consultation. “You must understand, gentlemen.” he said with becoming gravity, “my audience don’t care twopence about the words of a song, and they don’t care twopence about the music. All they want is— ’’ and he finished with an expressive wave of his cigar, which was certainly intended to convey some immortal truth. The Midnight Follies were a complete frost, so far as Sir Nigel Playfair was concerned, but how could they have been anything else? The book is full of intimate information about distinguished authors and actors, and there is a jolly and characteristic story of Ellen Terry, who was invited to Sir Nigel’s house at Hammersmith to see the boat race —a function which seems excessively to excite many people. “She was then supposed to be just a little vague as to the serious problems of life; but, as the crews arrived, she was quite emphatic. She turned to me, and, with a winning smile, she whispered, 'I don’t care a d — which wins.’ And there is a philosophy and a criticism of life in that attitude.” The modest rendering of the word “damn” in that quotation is Sir Nigel’s. He boldly declares that he canrot bring himself to believe that Henry Irving, “in his later days,” was a great actor. “At one time he must have been, but not when I saw and heard him. Then he strutted and mouthed, and I suppose there was no one brave enough to correct his obvious faults . . . Certainly on that occasion, as he read ‘Macbeth,’ I thought that the Scotsmen must have elected a very eccentric king with an exceedingly peculiar method of expressing his thoughts.” In this boldness of belief, one may find the secret of the author’s force. Very good-temperedly, he maintains his own opinion. Good temper prevails in his book. He has his own views, and holds to them, but he is willing to allow other people to have and to hold theirs.

In the middle of the book Sir Nigel reveals his firmest theatrical belief, that a national theatre is a necessity of our time, and in an impressive passage he ascribes the low condition into which our theatre fell during, and immediately after, the war, to the fact that we had no national theatre in which to maintain the standards of the stage. ? I can find no flaw in his argument on this point. It seems to me to be indisputable that the trouble from which the English theatre is still suffering is very largely, if not entirely, ascribable to the fact that in that time of disruption there was no place, apart from the Old Vic., where the honourable tradition of our theatre jould be maintained. Let the reader remember that the three great leaders of the English theatre —Sir George Alexander, Sir Herbert Tree, and Sir Charles Wyndham—died within IS months, and that those who should naturally have succeeded them were engaged in other things than actings and they will soon realise why, in the absence of a national theatre in which some stability could have been maintained, the level of the theatre swiftly dropped to that of the gutter. The great actor-managers died, and were replaced by smarty-smarty business men who are now, Hdaven be praised, rapidly being kicked into the Bankruptcy Court. When the last of them has been irretrievably ruined, we may liave occasion to hope for our theatre's return to glory. I could wish that Sir Nigel had given more of his space to this matter than he has.

Milton Hayes, the music-hall actor’ and author of “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.” is lying dangerously ill at Nice with rheumatic fever. Mr. Hayes, who was born in Manchester, went to live near Nice some two years ago, after his marriage with Germaine Sigfrid, a French film actress. Apart from his success on the stage, he is a writer of distinction. His first novel was “Cling of the Clay.”

Edward Knoblock will be breaking rather new- ground for him with his comedy, “The Mulberry Bush.” which |s to be produced at the Criterion Theatre, London. This play marks the end of five years’ silence on the part of Mr. Knoblock as a “solo” dramatist. “The Mulberry Bush” is a modern light comedy dealing with the Anglo-American set which frequents Le Touquet at the height of the sea son. There are only six characters, it one excepts a small dog, which plays an important part in the development of the plot, and the King’s ~°. ctor ' w **° is an ominous figure oft-stage.” Frances Carson will head the cast, which also includes Mercia Swinburne, Dorothy Tetley. Hubert Harben, Evelyn Roberts and Rupert Lister.

,A I e Xanb,Ußh has been plaving a Polish woman in an old play by G Bernard Shaw called “Mesalliance” at her nsnll 1 I ! heatre ‘ London. Instead of her usual elegant clothes she wore an aeronaut suit-1914 model. The piece iL a >S md does " ot