STAGE AND SCREEN
THE THEATRE
MR. JAMES CARAVAL, general practitioner in crime and specialist in blackmail and poisons unknown outside stage pharmacology, invited to dinner four persons, each of whom had adequate reason to desire his death. To them he announced, with a slightly suspicious flourish, that in all likelihood he would be dead before the evening's end. On the heels of this announce- ment came the sound of a lame man's footsteps on the stairs. Mr. James Caraval registered emotion and demanded to be locked in the bathroom, to which access was conveniently gained direct from the drawing-room. The lights were switched off, the lame man entered, and after a few menacing remarks stumped out again. Screams were then heard from the bathroom, and when the door was opened Mr. James Caraval was observed lying in a generous pool of blood.
If any one wishes to know why Mr. Caraval was in this not very interesting condition, he must go and see this play. This should not be mistaken for advice ; it merely means that I cannot remember the explanation myself. For most of the evening the stage was cluttered up with police and from time to time the management of its bounty provided another thrill. Stage police, compelled by convention to look stupid and baffled for two acts in order that they may more dramatically achieve a triumph of ingenuity in the third, now deserve the award of a collective pension ; and the management's thrills deserve to be forgotten—it would be difficult to deny them this tribute. Competent acting made this piece somewhat more bearable than it might have been. Mr. Edmund Willard was impressively sinister and impressively vacuous as Mr. Caraval and as Mr. Caraval's lunatic twin brother, Mr. Douglas Stewart provided some pleasant moments as a quipsome doctor, and Mr. Bernard Lee had an agreeable manner for a policeman. Bur it was left to Miss Phyllis Dare, in a play that was in plot, in humour and in sentiment a period-piece, to design a per- formance that was in perfect keeping with its material.
DEREK VERSCHOYLE.
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