THE THEATRE
" Aladdin." At the Coliseum.-4, Jack and the Beanstalk." At the Unity Theatre.
No two pantomimes could differ more profoundly than these, and even a conservative critic would admit, I think, that the devil has again got all the good tunes. Mr. Francis Laidler must be complimented, of course, on his courage in presenting a pantomime in London at all with most of the children evacuated, but one wishes he had gone one step further and presented a good pantomime. It isn't, after all, a question of expense: the scenery and dresses in a pantomime should be a little tatty, rather like the twopenny-coloured toy theatre sets which have gathered dust in a Hoxton window ; but the material, the words (and words are notoriously inexpensive) need to be new. Aladdin is like the ghost of all the Aladdins of the past: the blondes raise weary holiday-girl arms and shout their refrain, " Look up, look up, and meet the sun half-way " in the market-place in Pekin ; dubious jokes about fancy dress parties creak across Widow Twankey's backyard ; the principal boy lays his scarlet nail-tips on his little monogrammed breast-pocket and sings of love, " I don't know what love is, but something in my heart went rat-tat-tat ; the Widow Twankey jests hollowly on the great empty Coliseum stage about running noses and dead husbands and bananas ;. Wishee Washee rolls out his traditional stuff about sergeants and penal servitude ; the principal girl goes democratic in the Edwardian way, " I am a princess, it's trew, ew. But I wish I could change places with yew, ew " ; and every- body dreams, and sings, of being a millionaire. It's difficult some- times to believe that this is x94o and not t9r4—except that everything is so old, so very old. It is as if all the songs and jokes had been salvaged from the ruins of a quarter-century: the dust of history lies heavy on them.
Jack- and the Beanstalk is presented on a stage which would fit comfortably on to Widow Twankey's kitchen table: it isn't, of course, meant for children, but is Aladdin? It is a political pantomime, and the wicked giant is the capitalist system, and there are a few stock heroic lines in favour of the Soviets. The equivalent of singing about meeting the sun half-way is " Go to a protest meeting and have your little say." The strength of the Unity Theatre pantomime to non-Communists lies in its humour more than in its idealism ; but the idealism, even if we disagree with its details and distrust the blind belief in modern Russia, is young and fresh, and has the pathos of all faiths we cannot share. Jack's ambition, at any rate, is not, like Aladdin's, to be a millionaire, and an awareness of modern life gives the love songs a kind of Audenesque near-poetry : A worker without the right to strike, Reporters who can't say just what they like, What can they find to do?
Or me without you?
The comic songs are superb. " The Labour Leaders to the war have gone," " Transport House, Transport House, is there anyone there? " and, best of all, the parody of " The May Queen "- " For I'm to be gauleiter today, mother ; I'm to be gauleiter today "—sung by a sinister seedy country gentleman with a lisp and a worn Norfolk jacket and a mother-complex. The savagery of the book is mainly directed at " the Victory boys "- Mr. Morrison and Mr. Bevin (no actor could have looked more like Mr. Morrison except Mr. Morrison himself) ; in fact, the whole thing is thoroughly reprehensible from the point of view of this paper, but the wit and punch of the book cannot help winning admiration. The Unity Theatre is the nearest thing we have to the experimental theatre of New York.
GRAHAM GREENE.
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