" Sauce Tartare." (Cambridge.)
THE epithet " lavish," when earned—and this one earns it—by a revue, generally implies sins both of omission and commission. In the latter category it is apt to suggest a certain tastelessness, in the former a poverty of wit and invention. Sauce Tartare is unusual in that its lavishness lapses nowhere into the florid, and still more unusual in that the authors who wrote the words come out of it better than the players who pass them on to us. According to the programme Mr. Geoffrey Parsons wrote the lyrics, Mr. Berkeley Fase the music and Mr. Matt Brooks the sketches, which were produced by Miss Audrey Cameron ' • but a good many other people —including Messrs. Sid Onflick and Elwood Stutz, names that one would like to take into a corner and conjure with—are involved at various levels, so that it is hard to know how to apportion the credit for the high standard of verbal felicity attained. At a guess Mr. Geoffrey Parsons had as much to do with it as anybody.
The cast are numerous and gifted, but their style does not quite match that of their material, though in the funniest of the sketches —about an oculist so short-sighted that he cannot see the patient who has come to him for free spectacles—Mr. Ronald Frankau rises superbly to his opportunities. Miss Renee Houston does yeoman work, Miss Zoe Gail is cheerful and charming, Miss Muriel Smith sings sultrily and well and Mr. Claude Hulbert is always engaging. But none of these exhibits quite the requisite panache, and behind the glitter and the glamour we are vaguely aware that not very much is being made of a golden opportunity. It is, however, a better revue than most, well dressed, well mounted, supported by an admirable chorus and blessedly free from the upstart and intrusive
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