LA PLUME De MA Twill. (Garrick Theatre.) Goon, clean fun
is surely the last notion we associate with the idea of a French revue, and in most respects this charming entertainment differs utterly from both the modern big-scale London revue with a French title, and from the native product on view around the (3rands Boulevards. The team, mostly French, some English, led by M. Robert Dhery, burst into a comprehensible but usually entirely mislead- ing English, or use a line of patter in easily heard Anglo-French. Few of the scenes or sketches are original—that would be asking
too much of any revue today—but their treat- ment is; in most numbers, whether a duet, a strip-tease, an over-earnest ballet, some slight accident happens, or—more devastatingly— appears to be about to happen. M. Dhery, the pivot of the piece, offers inconsequential intro- ductions or explanations, and then leaves the team to do their damnedest, with infinitely funny results most of the time.
The cast rely on such sound attributes as an ability to mime, to use gesture significantly, to clown dexterously and without fuss; the singers can sing, the dancers can dance and are properly pulchritudinous. We have an impres- sion of watching a team of willing but absent- minded zanies, willing to make us laugh but not ready to burst blood-vessels in the attempt, and the seeming casualness of it all gives extra point to the fun. The songs don't quite turn out as you expect, the ballets are unlike any others you ever saw, there is some controlled knockabout comedy with a piano, a collapsible house, a swing, a real horse; there is strip- tease (real and incidental) and a public con- venience—and absolutely no dirt; ifs unique!, A. V. C.
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