If anyone could have made a success with serious drama
on the London stage, I should have been inclined to say it would be Sir Barry Jackson. With the record of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre behind him, all the world talking of his Malvern Festival, Mr. Shaw backing him for all he is worth, and the London pro- ductions of Abraham, Lincoln, The Barrette of Wimpole Street, The Farmer's Wife, The Apple Cart and Evensong bringing him good fortune as well as credit, who would have supposed that his ten years' work in London was not a success ? Yet here he is at last threatened with the necessity of giving it up, so far as London is con- cerned, and returning to Birmingham—though, I suppose, any brilliant success there or at Malvern would be sure to bring him back to Town. His half-dozen profitable ventures have been more than counterbalanced by th, failure, from a box-office point of view, of forty. creditable plays, so that in all those ten years only one showed a profit. What is to be said of the London theatre-going public if a manager makes losses when he produc( s The Immortal Hour, Back to Methuselah, The_ Addi Machine, Heartbreak House, Six Characters in Search an Author and Shakespeare plays with notable casts Has Sir Barry been too lavish in expenditure, or tu. uncompromising in his dramatic rectitude—and, ought he to have something like a National Theatre to back him up and keep him going ?
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