Old Bailey. By T. C. Worsley. (Theatre Royal, Bristol.)
THE question is sometimes asked whether a man has a right to criticise a play if he cannot write one. William Archer tried to do both, and The Green Goddess was the result. That distinguished critic, Mr. T. C. Worsley, has now made an attempt at creation. Telling a story of family life in 1923, he has added two characters who in 1953 make a running commentary on earlier events. This device, which destroys continuity, is unnecessary to the play's construction or understanding and accounts largely for an impression of piecemeal inconsequence. Such narrative requires anyway a perfection of timing which it was not given. It is only at the end of Act I that the cast can get its teeth into a big scene. Old Bailey himself, tyrranical head of a family business, which has always relied on good value for its reputation, denies power to his sons who are anxious to introduce shoddy goods and American ideas of salesmanship. He is created in the grand tradition, Old English as Galsworthy, a whale among minnows. Perhaps here is the second source of weak- ness in the play. Old Bailey lacks a worthy antagonist until the last scene when his elder son bullies him—to death. Douglas Campbell's performance as Robert Bailey I was sensitive, intelligent and commanding. Patrick McGoohan as Robert Bailey II did not measure up to the'stature of the grand old man, and one was at a loss to under- stand why his spirited lady-love had both- ered to follow him across the Atlantic. Another unexplained mystery was the dis- crepancy of the dress allowances, obtaining in the Bailey family—Mrs. Bailey luxuriated in a sartorial extravagance denied to the male members of the cast. Did Jack not mind any more than the audience when his wife left him, and would he stay lounging full-length on a sofa when two ladies enter the room ? Would even Leslie keep his hat on in his father's office ? Could the Leslie of 1923 conceivably be metamorphosed into the Leslie -of 1953 ? Despite such first-night mishaps, Mr. Worsley has built an interest-
ing play, which was produced by Mr. Peter Potter. Craftsmanship was there, and at times the play existed in its theatrical right rather than as a cerebral creation conceived at a desk.
JOHN GARRETT
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