DE LUXE THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 287, 31 August 1935, Page 13

DE LUXE THEATRE

“David Copperfield”

Further proof of Dickens’s genius is furnished by the fact that his stories can survive the transition from print to film without losing any of their appeal. Neither time nor medium can dim the greatness of The master’s conception, and this was shown by the reception accorded to "David Copperfield” which entered the second week of its extended season at the De Luxe Theatre. The cast is a notable one, and with the continuity supervised by Mr. Hugh Walpole, the most ardent Dickensian will find it difficult to pick holes in the picture, other than lapses necessitated by condensation (as in the ease of Micawber’s summary of the financial difference between happiness and misery). The story commences with the birth of David, and the later infatuation of his mother for the fiendish Murdstone, and her death. There with distressing detail is shown the travail of little David, his weary tramp from London to Dover, and his succouring at the hands of the temperamental Betsy Trotwood and Mr. Dick. Then- follow in perteet sequence the happy days at Mr. Wickfields and Peggotty’s, and hard upon the latter comes the perfidy of Steerforth, and the villainy of Uriah Heep; David’s marriage to Dora, her death, and, following on the exposure of Heep’s treachery, his marriage to Agnes Wickfield. One cannot pass lightly over David’s encounters with penurious Micawbers; his affectionate contacts with Peggotty, old Dan’l, and Ham Peggotty at Yarmouth, and the whimsical scenes with Betsy and Mr. Dick without a word for the faithfulness and “heart with which they are played. A very beautiful and touching performance is thai of Freddie Bartholomew as young David, while Frank Lawton is ingratiating as the adult David. Betsy is inimitably played by Edna May Oliver, and W. C. Fields makes an amusing, if not altogether convincing, Wilkins Micawber. Barrie Brettoner is at the Wurlitzer organ.