EMILY GIVES DICK THE GLADYS EYE.
Richard Trotter Mr. Charles Hawtrey.
Emily Delmar Miss Gladys Cooper.
In the Third Act, though we never recover the rapture of the First, the humour touches a higher level; but what it gains in finesse it loses in spontaneity. Here we meet Emily's father, returned from lecturing in the States on social ethics. The scandal of his daughter's conduct leaves him indifferent, for a long and varied experience of the morals of many lands, in the course of which he has married as many as eighteen wives, having made a point of adopting for the time being the system—polygamous or other—of the country in which he happens to find himself, has taught him that nothing is right or wrong except as local opinion makes it so. We are allowed to gather that heredity may have had some influence in the moulding of Emily's character; and if we may hope for its continuance into the next generation there seems every prospect that the children she may bear to Trotter (now released from Julia and free to marry the right woman) will not have their development hampered by excess of prudery.
Mr. Charles Hawtrey as Trotter played with his old easy skill and seemed to take a more than usual interest in the play. He was supported (as they say) by a particularly brilliant cast, including Miss Lottie Venne as the aunt, Mr. Eric Lewis as Emily's father, Mr. Frederick Kerr as Sir Samuel, Miss Helen Haye in the thankless part of Julia, and Mr. Nigel Playfair as a self-effacing phantom of a lover. All were in great form; but, next to Miss Gladys Cooper, whose natural charm and ingenuous espièglerie were a perpetual delight, I offer my profoundest compliments to the short but extraordinarily clever performance of Mr. H. R. Hignett as Trotter's man Francis. This is the day of stage valets, but he was an exceptional treasure. To a quiet taste for philosophy he added an infinite tact; and by the lies which he poured into the telephone to cover his master's breach of engagement to Julia he moved Emily, herself a gifted artist, to admiration.
The author, Mr. H. M. Harwood, must be congratulated on a farce that at its best was really excellent fun. And he may take it for flattery, if he likes, when I say that a good deal of his dialogue might be adapted into the French without offending our gallant Allies on the ground of a too insular squeamishness.
O. S.