26 OCTOBER 1951, Page 12

MR. GEORGE FORMBY has arrived at the West End in

the first big British musical play to emulate the brisk tactics of the modern American. It has a touch or two of Oklahoma, Carousel, Kiss Me Kate, &c. (and a shipboard scene vaguely reminiscent of Mr. Roberts), but its Englishness breaks through as bracingly as. the wind along the Lancashire coast—and never more pleasantly than when Mr. Formby, for the moment king Of a Polynesian paradise, dons a crown of flowers and intones a ditty to the strumpety-strum of his banjo-ukelele. He and Wallas Eaton insouciantly, inimitably and indomitably shuffle through the smart and, snappy settings like country cousins not easily impressed. IAIN HAMILTON.