18 APRIL 1941, Page 12

THE THEATRE

" Wednesday After the War." At the New Theatre—" Orchids and Onions." At the Comedy.

IT doesn't often happen that one reviewer finds himself com- pletely opposed to all his colleagues, and so it is after a great deal of heart-searching that I recommend Wednesday After the War as the best musical entertainment in town. Perhaps it's a matter of geography, for this is really a Collins show ; it needs the faint smell of bottled beer from the bar ; tt needs gala-nights with coloured balloons floating down from the ceiling ; it is certainly a little chilled by the unwelcoming West End, the fish- like faces, the applause like damp hand-clasps. Somebody behind me—who probably liked his demure and Punch-like Farjeon- said, " Its pretty grim, isn't it? " Grim? with Mr. Jerry Vemo singing a song which would have set all Islington whistling: " I'm a Home Guard man on duty, And I'm no blinkin' beauty, With me tin-hat, with me gas-mask, with me gun"; with Miss Enid Stamp-Taylor, who is in the great robust music- hall tradition of Maisie Gay and Lily Morris, as a spy in the Western Desert, singing, " Since I lost my stone, I'm the best date in the oasis," while Mr. Verno ambles in as "the advance section of a pincer movement," on a donkey? Grim? with Miss Robina Gilchrist singing charmingly the title song that contains all the nostalgia of our time, " Wednesday after the war "; with all the cuties waving flags and chanting, " Please Mr. Churchill " ? This is exactly what a war-time revue should be— if we forget one silly ballet-scene by the Dowager Maichioness of Townshend. It is all flags and heroism and hope, and the sudden devastating cockney joke. As for Orchids and Onions, I crept disconsolately out after half an hour; I can't say what scintillating talent may have appeared later : the sense of drabness