THE THEATRE
"Ducks and Drakes." At the Apollo.
AN amusing play and a brilliant cast. And who would grumble if, after having laughed continuously through three acts, reflection
prompted one to the conclusion that the action was hardly credible, the plot so tenuous as to be scarcely visible and the characterisation—though showing traces that tht. author had studied Tchekhov—of the sort that leaves most of the real substance to be supplied by the actors? Even an invisible thread, however, may be strong enough to keep the parts of an action together and it is so here ; although nobody but an Irishman would ever conceive of turning a duck-farm into an establishment for training a racehorse. This Irishman, Gabriel Kelly, played with the characteristic and to me, at least, entrancing charm of that fine actor W. G. Fay, is one of the only two male characters in the play, the other being Tony Barker (Ronald Squire). It is these two who, in their plan to train a mare on the five Tree women's duck-eggs for a local race, provide the action of this engaging piece. Barker is the father of one of the three girls who have married the three sons of Mrs. Tree. He is one of those conventional ne'er-do-well fathers Mr. Squire so convincingly breathes life into, and what dramatic tension the play possesses derives from the struggle of wits between him and Mrs. Tree, a lady of the old school who presides with aplomb and occasional shudders over her three up-to-date daughters-in-law who run the duck-farm.
There are six women in the play, all being " evacuees " bombed out of London, and the humours of townspeople living a new country life with war-rations separated from their men, are touched in by the author with a light and rather skilful hand. The three girls, played by July Campbell (darkly glamorous), Nora Swinburne (sweet and comely) and Eileen Peel (fair and ruthless) are entertainingly various, while Mary Jerrold as Cousin Irene and Kathleen Harrison as the maid-of-all-work matinee fan both give highly finished performances, well matched by the perfection of Lilian Braithwaite. The production by John Gielgud and the acting in this play are altogether a pleasure to see.
JAMES REDFERN.
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