THEATRE ROYAL.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 9 April 1926, Page 9

THEATRE ROYAL.

“THE FARMER’S WIFE.”. To-night at the Theatre Royal, for one night only, J. C. Williamson, Ltd. presents a new English comedy company, including ten noted London artists, in Eden Philpotts’s clever comedy of Devonshire life, "The Farmer’s Wife.” The play has proved the biggest comedy success of London since the war, and is still running in its third year. The firm specially selected ten noted artists in England, many of whom hare appeared in the English production. The Australian critics describe the piece as “the biggest laugh for years.” _ Eden Philpotts is well known for his fine novels, plays, and short stories dealing with rural life in England. Nothing ho has written is better than "The Farmer’s Wife.” The characters are richly humorous, and tho plot an amusing one. The younger men spond most of their time in amorous pursuit of Fanner Sweetland’s two daughters, the farmer himself proposes to and is rejected by four ladies in turn, and finally marries his attractive housekeeper. All the ladies to whom he pays his addresses, the fox-hunting widow, tile superior spinster with her villa residence, and the coy, comfort-ablv-built postmistress, are all amusingly drawn, and together with the part of tho farm labourer and the farmer himself, afford a clever company plenty of scope for laughter. A company described by a Sydney eritio as “brilliant” includes Doris Johnstone, Townsend Whitling, Edwin Brett, Violet Ley, Emmeline Orford, Reginald Newson, Graham Stuart, Susan Richmond, Frances Cave, Millie Engler, Yetty Landau, Eardley Turner, Arthur Greenaway, Doris Lascelles, Daphne Bairn, P. .7. Julian, and Peggy Welch. The special scenery, old-fashioned dresses and effects, and the music are all in keeping with the atmosphere of the play, which is English to the last degree. The box plans are rapidly filling at the Bristol, and a big house should greet this company to-night on their only appearance here.