22 FEBRUARY 1957, Page 7

I WENT TO the first night of The Crystal Heart,

and was torn between sympathy for the audience, who were much more amusing than the cast, and sympathy for Miss Gladys Cooper. If ever a play deserved the bird this one did, but the booing of Miss Cooper when she gallantly took an in- dividual bow was contemptible. How the play ever got to London is puzzling enough. But granted that somehow it did I would have thought it an elementary precaution, particularly after its reception in Edinburgh, to remove lines which positively demanded repartee and which the gallery were bound to see as a challenge. 'The bird has taken Madam'—shouts of 'And Madam has got the bird.' The moon is tired of all this nonsense'—'So are we.' What do I want now?'— 'Some decent dialogue.' An embarrassing evening, though if the play were properly .declaimed and burlesqued, it might make another Young England.