“THE UNFAIR SEX”

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1926, Page 15

“THE UNFAIR SEX”

A MOST AMUSING FARCE. COMEDY OF MARRIED LIFE. Six kisses, four kissers, two bluffers, and much misunderstanding are the principal ingredients in “The Unfair Sex,” a most amusing comedy of a day in an English seaside villa. It makes no pretence of being a serious exposition of life, but as, played by the New London Comedy Company in the Opera House last night it made a very evident success as an exceedingly humorous farce. Ridiculous situations crowded one on the other until the audience caught the habit of laughing, and just laughed and laughed. A bachelor uncle had watched life for so long through the eyes of a judge in divorce that he could see nothing but babies and mid-Victorianism as palliatives for all the world’s marital ills. His views on the subject were very strong and couched in such language that their publication in the newspapers irritated his childless niece by marriage and led him even to carry on Iws profession in unprofessional hours. So it was that when he visited his niece and* nephew for the week-end he exaggerated indiscretions into acts of more serious moment and soon found, himself the centre of an involved tangle of untruths from which there seemed no escape to normal happiness. He saw his niece unwillingly grant a kiss to a male acquaintance in a desperate effort to bribe him to break off a friendly attachment for the decanter. Then when the moralist in pursuit of righteousness was about to tell his nephew of the occurrence, he discovered by accident that here, too, there had been a departure from strict husbandly virtues. A kiss bestowed upon a child who had grown up, in memory of former days, had developed into five kisses in the shade of the shrubbery to assist in the search for tennis balls. Here was a situation that the judge considered he alone could handle. He kept each side in ignorance of the other’s sins, though suggesting that knowledge of their behaviour was common property. Divorce was desired by the husband, according to his game of bluff, and lie so managed things that the parties were kept apart and in ignorance of his duplicity.

But tlie comedy of errors and compromising situations came eventually to a pleasant ending with the tables turned on the bluffer. His duplicity was discovered and all were reconciled. Husband and wife forgave one another after mutual confessions, the possible corespondents found they really liked kissing one another much better than other people, and the uncle at last decided he would marry a widow whom he had known intimately in her single days. By this time, however, he had taken on a new love. He had discovered he could drive a golf ball “about half a mile.” Miss Zillah Bateman was convincing in the role of Diana Trevor, the niece, and sustained her reputation as an actress of ability in both, the grave and gay sides of her part. Her acting in the emotional scene with Joan Delisse, when she was taunted with her indiscretion, was particularly impressive. Mr. Campbell Copeland was admirable in the part of the busband., whose English reserve hid a genuine regard for his wife, even though he was indiscreet. Beneath an assinine exterior of affected manners and speech, Harvey Fane, the friend of the Trevors, who was for once too friend, ly with Diana, hid a really likeable nature, even if it was only for the laughs ho produced. The character was in the hands of Mr. Norman Carter, who always said and did the unexpected and absurd and said and did them so well that the audience was always in an exceedingly happy frame of mind when he was on the stage. The man who had had no personal experience of married life, but had “urn. pi red its troubles for 30 years,” was Sir Henry Hesketh, K.C., whose judicial yet kindly characteristics were portrayed by Mr. Frank Bradley. He was a most popular member of the company. The parts of Joan Delisse and Helen Delisse (Joan’s widowed mother) were taken by Miss Vera St. John and Miss Henrietta Cavendish respectively. Both had a big share to take and both proved the possessors of attractive stage personalities. Minor roles were taken by Miss Sylvia Clifton (a maid), and Mr. Jaejc Phillips (a cab-driver). To-night the company will play the comedy “Eliza Comes to Stay,” and on Monday it is booked to appear at Ha-w-era.