" Best Bib and Tucker." At the Palladium.
THE THEATRE
THE Palladium has for some time specialised in a musical variety diversion designed for a particular kind of popular audience, a sort of present-day counterpart to the suburban public that the late Oswald Stoll catered for a quarter of a century ago at the Coliseum. The new show Best Bib and Tucker amusing about five thousand daily (the Palladium holds about two thousand five hundred people) for months to come is more interesting as a social phenomenon than it is seen as an entertainment. It merits the attention of the mass observationists, for it reveals the psychology of a strata of the London public that is as solid and widespread as it is dense and insensible. Best Bib and Tucker has dances and ensembles which are dressed with a certain devastating directness that cannot be said to miss the mark, although more might be seen of them, but they are often used inappropriately and, so, without effect. The elements of attraction are there, but brains and taste are missing from their application. The chief thing lacking, how- ever, is a leading lady. There is not a single feminine personality of outstanding merit, and those ladies in the cast whose names are selected for printing in the programme do not deserve to be so singled out for criticism. Still, it is better to have none than some of the leading ladies London has had to see and hear. Into this medley are introduced three good juggling " clubmen " and the Cairoli Bros., excellent musical clowns whose performance, never- theless, one feels to be unequal to their talent. Apart from these, there is Mr. Thomas Trinder, who works very hard and is rewarded with uproarious hilarity. But nobody who did not witness it would readily believe that thousands of grown-up people would go to see this show when they could, for example, go to a light, popular and gay entertainment with dancing and music much more cleverly and tastefully presented. But perhaps Mr. George Black knows perfectly well for whom he is catering and that is why he has put on his Best Bib and Tucker instead of his smartest and best-cut clothes.
JAMES REDFERN.
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