Summer in December. By James Liggatt. (Comedy.)
COLLECTORS of dramatic clichés—but nobody else that I can think of—should hurry, while there is yet time, to see this comedy of love in the hotel-lounge, at Saccharine-on-Sea. One estranged couple is brought together by a sick child, another by the promise of a child to come. The old old problem of the English stage—which are the funniest : retired colonels, foreigners or the lower orders? —is solved by having a caricature of each. All that is lacking is a sliding-panel and a she-ancient with an iron will. There is little opportunity, with such stale stock to sell, for any of the players to surprise us or delight, and it is kindest to name only Mr. Frank Lawton and Miss Irene Handl, who do at any rate play up to, each other with professional briskness and a pleasure of their own at each other's prompt competence.
Why anybody should prefer this stuff to the cinema at its most banal is beyond comprehension, but it is only fair to report that on the evening of my visit the theatre was filled with folk who cooed over the two players in their teens, and passed along every row the opinion that Miss Handl was a scream, dear, and that the whole house trembled with shocked delight when a dashing actress, summoning up all her courage and professional skill, boldly
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