Heavy Punishment -
Silver Wedding. By Michael Clayton Hutton. (Cambridge).—
Jriih is arguable that any person rash enough to go to the London theatre in July and August is sticking his neck out and that he will not have long to wait before receiving a quick one smack in the kisser. Nor does he.
Silver Wedding is by way of being an uppercut —definitely U, in fact. It concerns a philandering ambassador whose long-suffering wife under- standably decides to take a lover. The poor chap behaves rather well and insists on his children (not quite corning-out age) reading his illicit love letters so that they shall 'understand' Mummy's point of view; he even tries to make it up with the aid of his mother-in-law, an ex-Gaiety girl now looking strangely like Queen Mary. The acting is distin- guished by smooth performances from Frank Lawton and Evelyn Layc, though one suspects their hearts are breaking in fact as well as in fancy; Marie Liihr gives a superb to-the-manner- born account of the old woman whose memories of dear Sir James Barrie and Sir Arthur Pincro are the best moments in the play. The dialogue is as realistic as numerous references to Harrods, Mar- shall and Snclgrove, Swan and Edgar, the Café ode Paris and Fortnum and Mason can make it. Odd Man in, on the other hand, a farce adapted front the French by Robin Maugham, is rather below the belt; partly because its subject matter tends that way and partly because of its Conti- nental provenance which, in the case of farces, disarms criticism. Woman takes sleeping draught and falls insensible on to living-room divan; glamorous but unreliable stranger, lost and be- nighted, takes rest of sleeping draught by mistake and falls ditto. Enter pompous husband. The rest is hubbub.
What, as usual, impresses about even mediocre French plays is their efficiency and intelligence; this one is not clever, not very original, but it is always compelling in a what-the-butler-saw kind of way and is sometimes very funny indeed. Why? Because it takes an intelligent man to write an even moderately successful farce; a rigorous, if
loony, logic must be seen to be at work and that is a sphere where the French excel and the Englis! generally fail. Muriel Pavlov, Donald Sinden ant Derek Farr play their improbable trio with i good deal of brilliance; Harold French, the pre, ducer, does his best to overlay the best aspects 6 the play with a sickly film of countrified Kensing ton. A mixed blessing, in fact, but it can be safe recommended after a good dinner. Oh! My Papa ! is the most staggering boa blow. If you can take the excruciating tinkle d long-stale tunes, the commercialised sentiment d a modern cuckoo clock and the lusty but almosl entirely indiscriminating roars of the Bristol Obl Vic (it is not really their fault—if they were dr9 criminating there would not be much of the sho# left) then you arc a champ. DAVID WAll
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