Keen Stickler for Etiquette (as A.A. man arrives on scene of accident). 1. HOMER FOR HOLLYWOOD. [General Sir IAN HAMILTON in a letter to The Times suggests the story of the Odyssey as an ideal subject for a film play.] THOUGH the blind Chian mendicant beachcomber Still lingers faintly in our modern ears, In the best pages of The Times to prove his A hustling generation tires of plodding Through his interminable catalogues; A double dose of "pep" and "vim" and nerve The glory of the cinema-to weed Out all the old conventions and contraptions. Has long been dust; the voice that from her lips Out of oblivion, lo! we see her come; HOW NOW, MY MAN! WHAT ABOUT THAT SALUTE? Waiting for tidings of her absent sheikh, Marked them as super-vamps and no mistake! In truth, although he dropped occasional bricks, Old HOMER had a pretty bag of tricks. Think of Ulysses, by the breakers battered, Swimming ashore-oh! what a chance for Doug"! And giving him, all worn and spent and shattered, "Q TOTO, which interpreted means "Golly!" And then of THEDA BARA, VILMA BANKY; Enough, enough: the vision grand and glorious The world in time will make its verdict plain; AT THE PLAY. "BITS AND PIECES" (PRINCES). LONDON feels more like its proper self now that GEORGE ROBEY is back again, with mind and body refreshed by foreign travel, to make us laugh. If he brings back nothing particularly new, why should he? What we like and laugh at is the old-the apt aposiopesis, the laugh arrested and turned to frowning reproof, the old preoccupation with the demoralising misbehaviour of loose dentures, the old surprise that anyone should so grossly misinterpret his (no doubt) entirely innocent. phrases, the same arched sable eyebrows and Dionysian rubicundity, the old pseudo-clerical garb which lends deplorable point to his most crooked shafts. arrest and rescue. "The Hippodrome Tennis racquet and foil were handled Eight," a most shapely, agile and well- with admirable effect; the football was trained troupe, carried through their dealt with adequately; they fell down, jolly business of the dance with an I am afraid, on the cricket, and this MR. GEORGE ROBEY SECURES THE BEST BITS AND PIECES. Bits and Pieces is a revuemedley invented and produced by Mr. ROBEY with happily frequent insets of himself with and without Miss MARIE BLANCHE, who held her own in the exchanges. He makes it very difficult for us to maintain a decent deportment when exhibiting to us a bulky white-satined bride who has surprisingly trapped some pooridiot into matrimony. Not every jest carried a clear meaning; but on the. other hand he is our most accomplished master of the intelligible grimace. And of his sly bits and pieces of lightning caricature the lèse-majesté of "Sixty Years a Queen" was perhaps the most diverting. In the monologue" Stuff and Nonsense" he was at all his old tricks and gags, demonstrating that his astonishing power of gathering up an audience and holding it helpless with laughter has not at all deelined. And it is all such good, sound, rude, common nonsense. ardour and accomplishment unusual must surely mean a defect of coaching. Nothing can make me believe that such accomplished athletes couldn't be taught how to wield bat and deliver ball more plausibly than that. "Seville" lacked conviction. The subordinate members of the company were bored and stockish. Miss MARIE BLANCHE looked very handsome as a Spanish cavalier, but the whole thing was incurably British. Pleasant voices sang dull songs of piracy and the sea. But nobody need complain. Pauses from laughter are necessary and someone must provide them. Mr. GEORGE ROBEY has assured himself that he is not forgotten: that indeed we really missed him. In sheer exuberance this good man actually turned a cart-wheel. Consult Who's Who for dates (b. 1869) to estimate that achievement prop erly. The "Hippodrome Eight" are doubtless so bracing. T. "PETER PAN" (GAIETY). For those of us who grew up, alas, before the elfin Peter was born this established annual Xmastide gathering of very young England causes inevitable pangs of sharp regret. "Another milestone! The twenty-third of its kind! And how well it all wearsas milestones should. How charming the fancy, how dexterous the manipulation of incident, how unabashed and all but persuasive the pervading sentimentality of it all. Did one really detect in the answer to Peter's plea for Tinker Bell's life a certain slightly perfunctory politeness replacing the more ingenuous enthusiasm of other years-a conspiracy of kindness towards the elders-incharge? Perish the thought!. And the new Peter? Admirable, certainly. Miss JEAN FORBES ROBERTSON has obvious natural gifts for the more mysterious, wistful, aloof side, of the character. Perhaps her? Other good items were "Joint Forces," an attractive libel on our police, on the note "It's nothing to do with us," with Miss MARIE BLANCHE as the police-woman; "Cross Words," in which two flower-women (Miss BLANCHE and Mr. ROBEY) exchange shrewd and doubtful comments on life and their neighbours; and one of those sketches | ticular the item Sports"-tennis, | Peter seems to have grown up just a with surprise endings, without which no fencing, football and cricket-was an little too much. But she has evidently revue-ish entertainment is complete intelligently designed miniature ballet, taken pains to try to give the more "A London Girl," the tragedy of a whelk-in which the movements proper to boyish aspect. It is a difficult balance stall, a hard-hearted proprietor, hunger, their exercises were aptly introduced. to achieve-perhaps in the nature of "FOOTBALL." SOME OF THE RATHER FORWARDS. 66 things an impossible. It was an intelligent sensitive performance, and one can be duly grateful for that. Certainly she put real vigour and fire into the fight with the terrible Hook, and handled her cutlass with a technique not naturally to be expected of her sex. Miss MARIE LÖHR was a most satisfactory Mrs. Darling, lovely to look upon and not more sentimental than her author intended. I liked Mr. WILLIAM LUFF'S James Hook. It reminded me a little of Sir GERALD DU MAURIER'S fantastic original, which still remains the best model, with Mr. HOLMAN CLARKE'S as an admirable second. Mr. GEORGE SHELTON, unhappily missing from the first performances of this revival, was, to our delight, back again at his jolly business of calico-rending. But he about their impending loss, should leave ation of your resourcefulness, their treasures in a conspicuous place pursues you pitilessly across the seas upon their dressing-tables. Our author and in three months walks into your has also invented the most original riverside cottage already surrounded by "I'VE BEEN DREAMING OF SPIDERS." Lord Carfour... MR. O. B. CLARENCE. Miss MARY CASSON'S Wendy was very quiet and businesslike, a little less ridden by the true Barrieish mother-complex than is demanded by the occasion. The tiny Michael (Master FREDDIE SPRINGETT) was entirely delightful. The lost boys and girls seemed perhaps a little shrill and stiff, but relaxed with complete success in their pillow-fight. Mr. ALLAN WHITTAKER dealt faithfully enough with the humours of Slightly. sleuth of modern times. No wonder the The pirates on the whole seemed lack-professionals called him an amateur. ing in blood and thunder. All you have to do when he has you The vision of a nervous box-office staff in his power is to send him a mesbesieged by infuriated mothers demanding for their young tickets for a performance obviously sold out days ago proved to me that among the elders the cult still flourishes. But I still have a slight doubt about the attitude of the new generation. T. "THE BLACK SPIDER" (LYRIC). Here is yet another of the now too fashionable crime-plays which dominate our stage. But let it not be supposed there is any mystery nonsense about it. The author (Mr., or perhaps Miss, CARLTON DAWE) quite clearly labels the criminal from the start and carefully avoids doing anything whatever to mitigate our inevitable suspicions. Moreover, everything that is going to happen is announced with precision, not once but several times. This no doubt makes for clarity; it also, I am afraid, involves considerable tedium. The Black Spider is a jewel thief working the profitable Monte Carlo area on a method which completely baffles the police. It is a method which assumes on the part of the detectives a careful guarding of all means of entrance except one and a complete ignorance of such common phenomena as cat burglars, of which the spider burglar is an obvious variant. It also assumes that the agitated possessors of diamonds, pearls and rubies, elaborately warned and moaning Reginald Cosway. Monsieur Boisfort . his "watch-dogs." One gratefully confesses that into this epilogue a certain liveliness is imported which mitigates somewhat the weariness of the main argument. Not that the happy ending errs on the side of credibility. : Clearly the poor mutt Cosway was never destined to capture the beautiful spider Angela (Miss FRANCES DOBLE). Nor could one so lovely have been really bad. The world surely owes to such beauty not a mere livelihood but a thoroughly good time-the best of lodging, food and raiment, the fidelity of servants, the self-sacrificing devotion. of accomplices, the love of a worthy highly unintelligent husband. And when finally at bay you just, after a little bright badinage, shut the brilliant detective in the cupboard, ignore his watchdogs and embark on the silvery Thames with your lover, abandoning for ever a career which has served its purpose. Miss FRANCES DOBLE had naturally no difficulty whatever in looking as attractive as the part demanded, and played as intelligently as it allowed. Mr. O. B. CLARENCE (Lord Carfour) made up for the emptiness of his lines by those diverting attitudes and gestures of which he is a master. Mr. MICHAEL SHERBROOKE did all that was possible, which wasn't much, with a more than ordinarily preposterous Continental policeman. Miss MADGE SNELL played with great intelligence the only part, that of Angela's French maid, which seemed to offer any real chances. Mr. ARTHUR AUBREY walked rather shamefacedly through the part of the fatuous Cosway, and Mr. HENRY WENMAN was very expansive and ultra-Continental in the stage manner as the hotel-manager. Others also ran as well as the difficult going permitted. T. Another Impending Apology. "Horta-The German Junker seaplane D1230 left for Harbour Grace at 5.25 this afternoon with the Viennese actress, Madame as passenger. Later: The D1230 is returning towed. Apparently the heavy weight prevented her continuing the flight."- Official News Bulletin. "SPORTING NEWS. after all, A. T. Young still is Arthur Young."-Daily Paper. So much for those who said he would MR. ARTHUR AUBREY. change his name to Archibald. MR. HENRY WENMAN. "Does anyone know how to stiffen a carpet sage that he is wanted downstairs, that has gone soft by being in the flood?" disguise yourself as the president of Provincial Paper. the republic or the hotel cat, and We should suggest a new carpet; the walk out under his nose. "Very in- present one seems to have worn a long genious," says he in generous appreci- I time. THE HAT. TRICK. IT was a heavenly hat. "A model, Modom, you will not see another like it," the assistant assured me at the sale of exclusive gowns and hats at the Cheetham Galleries. It was fortunate that I had taken an old-fashioned umbrella with a crook handle and a sharp end, which I keep in the attic specially for sales, otherwise I should never have got past the towering female who had had the forethought to put on a leather coat, or that despicable creature who had obviously taken a small child with her for the purpose of arousing sympathy. "Very much reduced," murmured the assistant as she tenderly stroked the treasure. I paid for it and she promised to send it at once. My heart was like a singing-bird as I steered my way through that uncharted sea of shoppers whose faces registered bargain-lust and agony. I scarcely felt them standing on my feet or poking their elbows and the corners of boxes into my body. As I walked lightly down the road, smiling at the thought of my hat, a happy idea occurred to me. I would call and tell Irene about it. This would be quite fair, although I knew she had neuralgia. Had she not worn a new fur at me when I was suffering from post-influenzal debility? it," I forced myself to say in a voice of this sum. The days of Boanerges In When I reached home the first thing this does not apply to vocalists. I saw in the hall was the wretched hat-that sphere the evolution of the art is box. I seized it and carried it and the marked by a movement in which resale brolly upstairs to the attic. muneration is in a direct ratio with inaudibility. The Westminster Gazette asserts that Mr. JACK SMITH “will probably settle in England," and his example can hardly fail to produce a rich crop of bat-squeak sopranos, muted contraltos, inarticulate tenors and dumb basses. In the attic, together with battered trunks, dusty venetian-blinds and other junk which had risen to the top of the house in a kind of domestic scum, was a heap of old clothes. There was a skirt which would only fit a thin person of about seven feet, a whiskery jersey, some knobbly shoes and a terrible man's suit carried out in green check. These articles had been collected for Irene's Aunt Honoria's jumble-sale, Having taken out the model, I teed The movement has not as yet spread to instrumental music, though the report that an ingenious inventor has applied for a patent for a silent saxophone has caused a certain amount of anxiety in syncopated circles. There is also talk of a telepathic trombone, whose notes, unheard by the human tympanum, are conveyed to the mental ear. On the other hand signs of reaction are to be noted in the popularity of musical mascots. Fashionable women have been their arms realistic little Pekinese dogs, seen parading the sales carrying under which when squeezed play lively tunes; but the price of these pets is prohibitory to the proletariate, and the habit is reprobated by the R.S.P.C.A. as encouragWhen I arrived Irene was sitting by the fire. She had evidently recovered THOUGH MENDELSSOHN is generallying the maltreatment of our four-footed from her neuralgia and looked radi- regarded by most modern critics as the antly happy. On her face was that outstanding representative of Victorian expression of serenity and exaltation formality, conventionality, respectathat religion bestows upon some women bility and decorum, there is a growing and new babies on other. In Irene's tendency to admit that, after all, he had case it could only mean one thing-new his points and in one respect at least clothes. was a pioneer. The ideal which every serious musician sets before him is the attainment of that mastery of concentration which enables him to read a full score without striking a note-to "auralize" its contents mentally. MENDELSSOHN took the first step in this direction by the composition of his "I'm so glad to see you!" she exclaimed. "I've got-but I'll fetch it. It's an absolute poem." Two minutes later she came back; my knees turned to jelly and the room began to swim round me. You will have guessed what she was wearing. It was my hat's twin. But you could not have guessed that she had bought it at a little shop round the corner where there was no sale and they only call you "Madam," or that it had cost twelve-and-sixpence less than mine. Years ago, when I was eight, the news was broken to me on Christmas Eve that I had measles. Never since then had I had the queer sensation in my inside that I felt when I looked at Irene. To think that for this I had endured ordeal by sale! "Isn't it a joy?" she gurgled. "It's a model." HUSH-HUSH_MUSIC. Songs Without Words," and every day that passes brings us nearer to the Millennium of Silent Music. We have not reached it yet, but the advance that has been made is strikingly illustrated by the announcement, made in The Westminster Gazette, that a salary "in the neighbourhood of £500 a week" is to be received by Mr. JACK SMITH, the "Whispering Baritone," who has just signed a contract to appear in a new revue next March. * * * Full-throated vocalists, as we have ascertained by careful inquiry, consider themselves lucky if they earn a tenth friends. HYMN TO JANUS. [Janus of the Two Faces was sometimes reputed to have four of them: hence the epithet Quadrifrons."} GOD of Avenues and Gates, First thy fourfold power I praise North and south and east and |