Contemporary Arts
Christmas Theatre
SINCE this is the time when ttirkeys are being trussed (if that is what you do to turkeys), holly being basted (if that is what you do to holly) and journalists being drunken (if that is what they do to themselves), I propose to cast aside dull criticism and talk about Christmas and the shows a devotee might go to without being sickened after his Boxing Day dinner, copious though it may have been.
First, there is Henry V at the Old Vic, although this can hardly be called a Christmas show pure and simple. Still, French and English make an agreeable change from Indians and the US cavalry or even from Peter Pan's pirates and the kids, while this Particular production has all the zip anyone could want. Incidentally, I owe an apology to the producer, Michael Benthall. 1 had thought him incapable of really red-blooded Shake- speare. Apparently I was wrong. This is as stirring a Harry as I could wish, with French knights biting the dust at the least provoca- tion and Richard Burton as a king who, one feels, would have no hesitation whatever in Murdering the wounded or anyone else, if it came to that. This was very much a part for Mr. Burton. His slightly sulky air shows up to best advantage when facing ten times the number of French knights and he managed to introduce a bluff soldierly tang into the speak- ing of his lines that sorted very well with the generally bloodthirsty nature of the play. Of course, it labours under the usual disadvan- tages: the climax comes too soon, the courting scenes at the end, would Shakespeare had blotted 'cm. Mr. Benthall got over this by cutting the scene after the battle to A minimum, but he was unable to lift it out of the ruck entirely. Still, this was a good production of an unpromising play, and Mr. Burton was ably seconded by the rest of the cast, though John Neville was a little bit too picturesque as the chorus.
At the newly opened and air-conditioned Comedy Theatre there is a gentle American slice of life, Morning's at Seven, in which humour is extracted from a Mid-Western family or series of families, whose impotence is worthy of Tobacco Road, but not, unfortu- nately, their morals. Peter Jones plays the forty-year-old nephew with a humour not devoid of pathos (far from it!), while a horrible picture of his aunts is given by Margaret Vines, Marda Vanne, Mona Wash- bourne and Nan Munro. Aunts are pretty horrible anyway, don't you think? And as for the Mid-West . . .
Another bit of Americana is the adaptation into a musical comedy of Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women, which rejoices in the title of A Girl Called Jo at the Piccadilly. The mixture of America and nineteenth century produced a gruesome enough period piece with a com- petent score, but not much to write home about.
The Royal Court Theatre offers Let's Make An Opera, well done in a manner that has become almost traditional. At the Arts there is an excellent new children's play, Listen to the Wind, by Angela Ainley Jeans.
Other shows include Al Read's latest, Such is Life, at the Adelphi, a must for anyone up from Bolton, but probably a little too Nordic for Cockneys, and Dick Whittington on Ice (God help us all) at the Empress Hall. This kind of thing always leaves me cold, but it was quite well done. Other pantomimes are Peter Pan at the Scala, Cinderella at the Palace and Charley's Aunt with Frankie Howerd at the Globe. I told you aunts, were hell. The Princes has two Enid Blyton Christmas plays, The Famous Five and Noddy in Toyland, which, so I am told, are just the thing for under-sevens.
ANTHONY HARTLEY
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