THE THEATRE
"Escort." At the Lyric Theatre.
THIS is a play about the Royal Navy, and its realism is a refreshing change from some of the sentimental, pointless stuff recently seen on the London stage. It is vivid, amusing, exciting and has the great virtue in a play of steadily increasing in interest until it reaches a truly terrific climax in the last act. Apart from its fidelity to the spirit of our magnificent seamen and their tradition of service, the play has the advantage of an exceedingly good plot, and the audience is kept constantly alert, suspicious but completely baffled by the mysterious nature of what is going on in the ship. An ominous sense of danger is skilfully maintained while the threads of the mystery are being carefully gathered, and even at the very last moment the author, Sir Patrick Hastings, can produce a surprise. It is the best and most convincing spy play I have ever had the luck to see ; but it is not only a stage thriller, it is also a valuable and deeply-moving panegyric on the heroic life which is being led day by day and night by night by our seamen.
In the first act we are introduced to a batch of young R.N.V.R. lieutenants of a merchant cruiser who are awaiting in a Royal Dock- yard their orders, to sail. We learn their peace-time professions— one is a policeman whose subsequent intelligence is the only thing in the play which strains our credulity—and if they are conventionally characterised, the fact is that they are a conventional lot and plausibly, representative. But one of them, unknown to everybody, is a German. You will never guess which, and I must not spoil the play for you by revealing th t plot, although, in fact, it is a .play I could enjoy seeing a second time. There are eighteen characters and not a single woman in the cast. It is the sort of play Basil Dean produces very well and the team-work is excellent John Stuart convinces us that Captain Ewart, R.N., was a true hero, and I do not know how to pay a bigger tribute to an actor, but his performance is matched by that of Barry Morse, who seems to me to be a young actor to
watch carefully. This is a play you must see. JAMES REDFERN.
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