CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
Home and, Beauty. By W. Somerset Maugham. (St. Martin's) matter is farce, the manner is comedy and the whole thing is tremendously funny. At the end of the First World War Victoria discovered that she .was not, as she had hitherto supposed, widowed half-way through it ; William suffered nothing worse than a head- wound and a loss of memory. But she has meanwhile married Frederick, William's best friend, and thus finds herself with two hus- bands on her hands. To both Victoria seems equally adorable, but both know that as a wife she has serious disadvantages. Each, there- fore, is bent on renouncing-her in favour of the other, and only the fact that Victoria herself has privately decided to renounce them both averts a deadlock in their increasingly desperate efforts to out-do each other in self-sacrifice.
On dialogue and situation alike Mr. Maugham's brushwork is wonder- fully deft, and the post-war background of shoddiness and shortage dovetails instructively into today's. Miss Brenda Bruce is extremely funny and fetching as the minx, Messrs. Anthony Marlowe and Hugh Burden do very well indeed as her husbands, and Mr. Brian Oulton's solicitor and Mr. John Boxer's arriviste make most effective interven- tions. This is the most amusing play I have seen for a long time.
PETER FLEMING
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