NEW PLAYS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18634, 8 March 1926, Page 7

NEW PLAYS.

RETURN OF MISS IRENE VANBRUGH. A NEW ZEALANDER'S COMEDY. (7BOH OOTSI OWN COHBBSPONDBHI.) LONDON,- January 26. Miss Irene Vanbrugh returned to the London stage last night in a hew play, "All the King's Horses,*' by Mr 0. E; Openshaw, "Three years," says a well-known dramatic critic, ."is not a long time for most people to be away—it is, indeed, too short a time for many—but it is too long by exactly three years for Miss Vanbrugh, and I trust, now that she has returned to us, that she will settle down in. London, and not go galivanting about the remoter parts of the earth again. If Afrikanders and Australians wish to see her act, they must come Home and see her. The' parent nation cannot always be lavishing rich gifs on the children nations: it must be allowed to keep something for itself. For my part, I say that Australia and South Africa, and Canada and New Zealand can have all we possess, provided they let us keep Irene Yanbrugh." The .author has written a conventional comedy. Miss Vanbrugh has, the part of a wife of a ponderous ass, who is everlastingly harping on his dignity and his responsibilities. The man has ambitions; he would be a knight and member of Parliament, and talk about "this grave crisis in the nation's affairs." He is always busy, even' at home, and so his family must keep a continual holy Sabbath,'while he is about. The result is that his wife is profoundly bored by him, and has invented a deafness so that she may not have to listen to him; his children frankly' dislike him. The boy wants to be on artist, and the girl wants to marry her father's secretary, Roger Elrington. "No,' says father, "Jack must come into the business, and Jill must marry my dear old friend, Sir Harry Vane, who can be so useful. to Be." Mutiny among the children, which father attempts to quell by refusing to give Jack an allowance and sacking Elrington. Humpty Dumpty's Tall. So far, Humpty Dumpty sems to be having it all his own way. But a Mrs Maunders appears upon the scene, and has a little chat with Mrs-Everitt. Mrs Maunders, it turns out, was once a young person in Oxford, and, as such, took the fancy, among others, of Wilfred, ivhom she called Willie. She had a.daughter by Willie, and was duly provided for by a lump sum. But the lump sum libs given out, and times are hard, what with the rise in the cost of living and one thihg and another 1 Then Alice Everitt decides to push Humpty Dumpty off tho wall, and she does so with great vim and V '*Given a certain level of competence—a level which he author attained without difficulty—the audience was evidently prepared to take the play very largely for granted, and devote itself to giving a fitting welcome to a brilliant actresß. It is not to be pfetended that the jtart of Alice gave Miss Irene Vanforu<rh any real opportunity of showing her finest powers. There is little in it that she cannot do easily. But it gives her enough to remind us that she is back again, and that the London stage can never really be at its best without her. She is supported by an excellent company, who give us the impression of being in almost every case as good as their parts will allow them to be. Mr B. Berkley's New Play. "Mr Abdullah," a farcical comedy, by Mr Reginald Berkeley, author of "French Leave," was produced last night at the Gaiety Theatre, Hastings, before a crowded audience, which included the Mayor and the Corporation. The play was received with every sign of approval. The author has imagined Mr Abdullah a personage alternately an Asiatic prince and a wooer of a charm- ' ing young lady, and his amorous adventures lead into a maze of extremely funny predicaments. An American accent and a big cigar are the main features of the first act. and the smoker is Mr Maurice Harvey, whose selfconsciousness as the secretary to the prince provides most of the fun in the first act. The second and third acts are crammed with a host of awkward predicaments and funny situations, which include a very charming love interlude.