"HIE ENTERTAINMENT had a Victorian 'at home' air about it.
Sir Michael Redgrave sang. His light agreeable baritone in his songs from the Beggar's Opera was certainly a surprise to me, and he re- ceived that enthusiastic applause which springs from relief as well as appreciation. Mr. Hoffnung and three friends (one of whom was introduced as 'the leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of New York'), played a jolly, matey version of the pizzicato from Delibes' Sylvia. There was little showmanship, and indeed a great deal of well-veiled nervousness, about this section of the programme; and I sat waiting for the sugar to dissolve on the pill. It never did. Mr. Miles Malleson delivered a soliloquy from Moliere which, as it comically conveyed a Falstatlian preference for life before honour, could hardly be thought to be a disguised appeal for the ND cause. The bomb came a little nearer with readings from poems on peace and death by Dame Peggy Ash- croft, Jill Balcon and C. Day Lewis; but only two items made a direct propaganda appeal—Christo- pher Logue apostrophising himself as 'Logue' after the fashion of General de Gaulle, and a parody Tory election address written by Priestley and spoken by John Neville. No rousing playlets, no nuclear anthems, no demagoguery, no visual aids —just a group of well-known entertainers putting on a charity show late at night. What a very English way, I thought, of doing it.
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