THE STAGE ENGLISHMAN

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 17

THE STAGE ENGLISHMAN

A new stage Englishman, says “The Times,” has appeared recently in a Paris play, but, from the account of him, he seems to be only the old stage Englishman with a dash of the entente cordialo added. He demands a bath, wears loud checks, eats ham and eggs for breakfast, and displays the English phlegm on all occasions. But, of course, it would be futile to introduce a stage Englishman into a French' plav who was not the stage Englishman. for the audience would not recognise him. There may be variations on the well-known theme —in this case the Englishman is simple, sincere and tun of good intentions —but the theme itself must remain, and it does not matter whether or not there is still any truth in it. No doubt the stage Englishman is drawn from some observation, perhaps of Palmerston’s time : but nations in their ideas of each other are apt to be belated by a generation or two. We still think of the French as light-hearted and frivolous, and they still think of us as phlegmatic: but , in fact, they are often shocked by our frivolitv, and are surprised by their desperate seriousness; while, as for our checks, they are at least less loud than the checks of Frenchmen who dress in English style. Again, this Englishman is much concerned as to whether he shall wear a black or a white tie in the evening, and that may be a point that does not trouble Frenchmen ; but it appears to us that they pay more heed to conventions in dress and in other matters than we do. No one is so conventional as a frenchman because to him convention is a law of Nature which controls him unconsciously, like the attraction of gravity, so that he cannot, imagine, it otherwise. With u« conventions are in-