THIS GLAD SHRIEK FROM THE GRAVE

Radio Record, 17 June 1938, Page 29

THIS GLAD SHRIEK FROM THE GRAVE

PUBLIC sense of humour seems to be changing. Just as in conversation jokes nowadays have to he slightly smutty to be sure of raising a laugh, so in books the most popular humorists are the men who can skate on the thinnest ice without quite knocking over the censor. All the same, the sparkle of these sophisticated, sniggering funnymen is apt to become a little too dazzlingly "bright" when it is seen frequently. Now and then, you catch yourself in disgraceful yearnings for the simple «‘horse" laughs of yesteryear, for the irresponsible nonsense of a Wodehouse and the risque jokes so obvious that even. a virgin can see them. in such a mood, you may be lucky enough to come across Joan Butler’s "Lost Property"’-which was for me the silver lining under the clouds of a wet King’s Birthday, There is a genuine old-time touch about this silly book that is like a glad shriek from the sraye, The fun starts when Mr. Winton Cheyne kicks his fiancee’s pet goat from behind because it had mealed off {Continued next page.)

his gloves. With this kick his engagement abruptly ends-for fiancee Letitia Hudson is a singularly outspoken young person devoted to her goat-and Cheyne loses not only a bride, but an historic amulet he had given her in a drunken moment, His efforts to regain the trinket and Miss Hudson’s equally strenuous efforts to keep it, bring into the picture pretty Sally Marston, & hard-boiled American newspaperman named Slim, Miss Hudson’s second fiancee, Lord Pinkerton, and a nudist colony. These folk all cavort strangely across the scene, while in the background go on mysterious burglings and head-biffings and nudist revelations, There is not a dull page in the book, and only a few, thank heavens, that are sensible. The situations are preposterous, the characterg mostly: impossible, and their conversation entirely unnatural, Definitely, "Lost Property" is exactly what you have been wanting te give your worst enemy just after an appendicitis operation, ‘fost Property," by Joan Butler. (Stanley Paul ang Co., LLtd., London.) Our copy from the publishers.