Mr. Harry Irving's, too, was a fine performance, though, from the moment of his entrance, a figure of sinister portent, he lacked all contrast of light and shade. But, to be just, that was hardly in the part, as made—deliberately, so it seemed—for those particular methods of which he is the master.
As for Mr. Holman Clark, if all Teutons, naturalized or other, were like his Sir Adalbert Schmaltz (or Sir Keith Howard, as he called himself after the War began, on the principle that the best was good enough for him) I should have small ground of quarrel with the race. But how this joyous German ever came to wear a kilt and own a deer-forest I cannot hope to understand, for there was no hint of Semitic origin in his face or composition.
Mr. Reginald Owen made a most human soldier-boy, and I shall never want to meet a Guardsman with a better manner or an easier sense of humour. I remark, by the way, that young Blaine is the second stage-hero (the first was in The Cost) whom the War has affected in the head.
Miss Margery Maude, though she had the rather ungrateful part of a girl who is quite ready, thank you, to be loved as soon as you feel like it, played, as always, with a very perfect tact and charm.
Finally, Miss Kate Bishop was her dear old self, and Mr. Tom Reynolds' sketch of a solicitor was as bright as it was brief.
I venture to offer my best compliments both to the cast and to the author, and to hope that his Searchlights may serve well to pierce the shadows of the night through which we are passing.
O. S.
