THE THEATRE
IN spite of the title, this, like all Mr. Firth Shephard's admirable revues, is a family-show, which won't keep the censor awake at Right. This may seem doubtful praise—humour when it isn't raw is apt to be a little tame, but there is a third category, to which Mr. Shephard's revue belongs—the wild. He is helped by the two finest clowns upon the stage today, Mr. Sydney Howard and Mr. Richard Hearne. These men don't need words ; you might almost say that Mr. Hearne only needs a hole in which to stick his finger or a window to leap through, while Mr. Howard doesn't even need as much as that—only the small plot of ground on which he waveringly stands, keeping his dignified and dubious balance with one weaving fin. He is like a drawing by Thurber --his vague, featureless bulk seems to be contained only by a gle pencil-line. There are also stout, energetic Miss Vera Pearce Mr. Arthur Riscoe, who is a taste I haven't acquired. (I ish he wouldn't go on writing songs about Sally.) And, of arse, every show must have its juveniles. How odd these male uveniles of the conscription-era would have seemed to us three ears ago—one is not yet accustomed to, the first rapturous "ss of these so mature lovers. This is ahnost the only weak pot of the revue, when the lighting.goes mauve and the juveniles teak off their embrace and approach the audience in turn o confide across the orchestra the most astonishing abstractions: Life is a melody never heard before," or pieces of natural obser- anon: " When it rains each little stream is a sun-kissed avenue."
GRAHAM GREENE.
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