IN LONDON NOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 992, 7 June 1930, Page 26

IN LONDON NOW

19th. Century Revivals Will Be Interesting MAURICE BROWNE’S “FREE” PROBLEM Mr. Maurice Browue is finding the path of a philanthropic theatre manager beset with unexpected problems, writes a London correspondent on the week’s news in the theatre. He set out to make the Globe Theatre under his regime a house where playgoers could revel in free programmes and free cloakroom accommodation. But he has found that patrons are giving such liberal tips to the cloakroom attendants that the economy he had planned for his audiences has not really taken place. So now notices have had to be posted requesting people to accept the novelty in the spirit in which it was offered, and not to tip! There Is no doubt, however, about the welcome accorded to the free •programmes. Another Naval Comedy Commander Stephen King-Hall and lan Hay (Major John Hay Beith), whose co-operation proved so happy in “The Middle Watch,” still running at the Shaftesbury Theatre, have written another naval comedy together and it will be presented in the West End in due course by Basil Foster and Tom Miller. Not only has “The Middle W T atch” run longer at the Shaftesbury than any play at that theatre since “The Arcadians,” but Mr. Foster has also scored a success with lan Hay’s Scottish comedy, “A Song of Sixpence,” at Daly’s. His and Mr. Miller’s policy is to make the Shaftesbury Theatre the home of light, clean comedies —particularly those emanating from the happy lan Hay-P. G. Wodehouse partnership—and to build up something approaching a W r est End stock company.

Meanwhile, the next production at the Shaftesbury will be “Leave It to Psmith,” with Mr. Foster as the famous Wodehouse comedian. “The Silent Witness”

The Comedy Theatre is, paradoxically, becoming quite an established home for murder "thrillers.” The latest, to be produced, is “The Silent Witness,” by Jack de Leon and Jack Celestin (the pen-name of a Whitehall Civil Servant), which was done at the “Q” Theatre eighteen months ago tinder the title of “The Man in the Dock.”

The central character is a man who is nearly convicted of murder on apparently convincing circumstantial evidence which proves to be entirely at fault.

In the cast will be Marie Lohr—whom it will be good to see back in the West End —Malcolm Keen, Lawrence Anderson, and Robert Harris. The Old Bailey and Scotland Yard are represented in the scenes. Frank Vosper seems to have taken several leaves from talking-film books for his production of “Debonair” at the Lyric Theatre. He has used some special scenic devices reminiscent of the screen to enable the play to move swiftly from an Italian villa to rooms in Gray's Inn, thence to a Budapest hotel, back to Gray’s Inn, and once more to the villa in Italy. These five scenes constitute the first two acts of the play. “Debonair” will also have a “theme song”—another talking-film idea. It has been composed by Mark Anthony and will be played by the orchestra as a connecting link between the seven scenes.

Dr. Marie Stopes’s birth-control propaganda play “Our Ostriches,” which was seen at the Court Theatre some years ago, is to be revived for four weeks at the Royalty. Nineteenth Century Revivals

What should prove an extremely interesting series of 19th century stage revivals is to be produced at the Kingsway Theatre.

Following the revival there of “The School for Scandal,” it had been intended to stage “The Rivals” and other 18th century successes. The management has, however, temporarily lost the services of Angela Baddeley, for the most pleasant of all reasons (she married last July Glen Byam-Shaw, an actor), and of Frank Cellier, 'who has just undergone a serious operation.

So Simon Ord, the general manager, has switched over to the 19th century, and, with Lawrence Hanray, the actor, and D. A. Clarke Smith, the producer, is to stage a number of half-forgotten Victorian successes. The first revival will be “His Excellency the Governor,” Captain Robert Marshall’s comedy which was originally produced in June, 1898, at the Court Theatre. The cast will include C M. Mallard, Lawrence Hanray, Cathleen Nesbitt and Joan Maude.