The Barn Theatre at Shere, that gallant venture floated seven
or eight years ago by Cambridge undergraduates of histrionic inclinations, may now be regarded as an estab- lished institution. One evidence of that was that last week, for the first performance in England (or anywhere else) of a dramatised version of Mary Webb's The House in Dormer Forest, the house was filled to capacity not only on Saturday evening, which is usual, but on every other evening, which is not. The play, as the programme indi- cated, is rather a series of episodes than a close-knit drama, but it never lost its hold on the audience, and much of the acting was admirable, particularly Isolde Denham as Amber Darke. There is one little deficiency that needs putting right. Since the theatre admits its audience free and depends on the collections it takes up, despicable persons who drop coppers instead of silver—or notes, or cheques— into the rather experienced top-hat in which such dues are collected should, if possible, be named from the stage.
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