31 JULY 1941, Page 10

• , Lady Behave." By Stanley Lupino. At His Majesty's.—

Quiet Week-End." By Esther McCracken. At Wyndham's.

MR. LUrnsto's is the first musical comedy of the war, which it deserves to outlive. Here is the perfect escape: good extravagant clothes, charming sets and a crazy story of Hollywood, with Sam Goldwyn producers, foreign directors, stars, stand-ins, and Mr. Lupino as a stunt man with pop-eyes and tight trousers and Cockney hopefulness never making good. "Nothing ever happens to a no one," he sings with musical-comedy pathos, but this is wild understatement when you consider that, his wife (Miss Pat Kirkwood) has to go through the marriage ceremony with an old beau from Sing-Sing and pass Mr. Lupino off as her brother to save his life, and Mr. Lupino trying to steal the marriage-register to save her is saved again by a film scenarist in woman's clothes who marries him. Through this inextricable coil of manages de convenance prowl lovelies—Miss Sally Gray, the stand-in, and Miss Judy Camp the star. Their loves are as sacred as Mr. Lupino's is prof Miss Campbell, with the ghost of the Berkeley Square nightin in her long husky throat, encourages every young officer in stalls by singing " He's just an ordinary man, this man I've g for," and in a passage of admirable sentimental dialogue her lover Miss Sally Gray proves herself an actress of tal longing for the world the films have told hdr about—the P of Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, the London of Astaire and Rog And in case our sentiments get a little too elevated, there's ah Mr. Lupino to burst in again with some devastating self-revelati " Custard powder," he says almost before the husky voice ceased to pull at our heart, " it clings a little ; but I have s fun," he confides joyfully, " getting it out of the crevices."

Quiet Week-End is a typical comedy of the 'thirties: fragrance Doche-Smith : a slice of gentle life with mild i about the W.C. " Isn't that just like Aunt May? " or grocer always treats me that way " are the kind of deligh remarks you overhear. This is a sequel to Quiet Wedding, the characters were greeted by the audience like old friend which made me feel a bit out of it. I wanted to slip a quietly, unnoticed, and finally did. It would be really be to live this sort of life than write it. GRAHAM GREENE