FOR fifteen years the hope has persisted that the next
Canterbury festival play may be another Murder in the Cathedral. It never has been ; it never will be—but how depressing for the authors to feel they are beingludged by another man's standard. Mr. Gittings has written a play about Alphege,.an earlier Archbishop of Canter- bury, who—like Becket—faced death calmly and refused to take precautions against his murder. John Byron plays this part unevenly. At first he seems unable to express anything at all through his grease-paint mask, but when the plot demands that he should proclaim his spiritual authority he rises wonderfully in stature .and shakes off all his disadvantages Frank Duncan and John Glen are the Viking leaders—the Norseman an introspective feverish young man who seems cut out for the foreign service rather than for soldiering, the Dane a much more likely character with a -certain military swagger. Well-written parts, these, and well played.
The Makers of Violence, unlike some other verse plays on religious themes, has enough, vitality to carry it beyond the specialised
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