CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
London Laughs. (Adelphi.) To wish to see at first hand those whom he or she admires from a distance seems to be a strong and natural instinct It the human animal. The kings and the captains, the rowing b ues and the jockeys and the cricketers, the ballerinas and even the authors who surface, so often ill-advisedly, at literary luncheons—we are impelled, by some quirk of idolatry, to clap our eyes on them if we get the chance. Perhaps we want to give them the chance of disappointing us, though in most ways we hope that they will do the reverse. They generally do disappoint us, because when we actually see them they are doing something—making a speech, presenting prizes, signing autograph-books--which is not the thing we admire them for and in which they have no special supremacy. So they often take the chance which we give them, the chance of disappointing us.
Of the three B.B.C. stars round whom this reasonably well-mounted and reasonably entertaining revue is built, only one cannot be said to let the discriminating listener down. Miss Vera Lynn, tethered to the microphone by unseen bonds which differ only in kind from those which in winter tether sheep to swedes, sings with great virtuosity and warmth a number of no doubt justly popular songs ; her contri- butions are thoroughly professional and of their sort excellent. Mr. Tony Hancock, on the other hand, appears to have only the makings of a comedian, and his performance, though promising, is blurred and ineffective.
Finally there is Mr. Jimmy Edwards, for whom--on the air—I have an almost idolatrous admiration. Alas, he disappoints. The sureness of touch, the command of nuance which his voice so easily conveys, his unpredictability—these are not wholly lost upon the stage. They are indeed rediscovered and embellished—with business, with properties, with support from the orchestra. But they do not add up to mastery ; and I came away with the same sort of sad feeling that might have been generated—mutatis mutandis—by the spectacle of W. G. Grace- playing ice-hockey very creditably.
PETER FLEMING.
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