THE THEATRE
" Rise Above It." At the Comedy. " Actresses Will Happen." By Walter Ellis. At the Apollo.
AT last we have a revue without those mysterious weak spots (how is it that they survive rehearsal after rehearsal : the sentimental song that just sags like a piece of damp washing, the joke that nobody laughs at, the dance-scena of killing seriousness in a mauve light?). The Hermiones--Baddeley and Gingold—have certainly risen above all that, carrying the rest of the cast in their grotesque and sublime flight. Miss Gingold's wit is bitter and narrow, with a kind of hate of her subject: the girl who goes to lunch-time ballet (" I like some Robert Help- mann with my lunch "): the lady in the Liberty dress who gives a little talk about music with illustrations. Miss Baddeley's wit, on the other hand, is wild and genial, the unrestrained poetry of absurdity. See her as an old lady-evacuee up in London for the day to choose a hat, a little hoarse under the appalling head- gear, but game to the gamey end. See her, too, as the famous Chelsea model, all black velvet and undone fasteners and extra- ordinary bulges and aged energy, trying in vain to seduce a new young painter with green Chartreuse (" I've been etched in Montparnasse, water-coloured in Venice, engraved in the Fulham Road, and, of course, oiled everywhere "). And see both ladies lead a cadaverous and faded cast in a savage parody of an E.N.S A. entertainment for the troops. (" You can't go wrong with a nice bright song.") One would like, too, to pick out a fine macabre number, " Truth," sung by Miss Virginia Winter, the gentle humble amiability of the compere, Mr. Wilfrid Hyde- White, and the charming sentimentalities of Miss Carole Lynn. As for Mr. Walter Crisham, I confess he is one of my blind spots. I cannot bear his hideous little short jackets and his general air of sleekness and passion—a cross between Mr. Noel Coward and Miss Dorothy Lamour.
Actresses Will Happen ought to be passed over in silence. There is only one saving grace—that is the beautiful performance of Mr. Herbert Lomas as the old school-friend, the over-consulted and the over-relied-on, with the false teeth that don't quite fit and the pipe that's always going out. GRAHAM GREENE.
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