A LONDON BALL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 7, 8 July 1931, Page 14

A LONDON BALL

DANCING- THE PQLKA

"I do not know when I have seen the Duke and Duchess of York enjoy anything so much as the Victorian cabaret at the Victoria League; Ball, writes a Londoner. "The Quadrille—which -was danced by girls in sweeping Victorian frocks of flowered taffetas, made with huge crinolines and tiny waists, and men iv period costumes—and the Barn Dance—-in which debutantes' attiredin frocks of chintz and cretonne copied from working-girl styles of 1840 were partnered"Toy men in hunting pink with grey toppers —were both picturesque, gay, and amusing. But it was the See Me JJance tho Polka—a rollicking burlesque danced mY costume-; by stage stars—that made the fluke and' Duchess laugh with real abandon. '■ "Sir Gerald dv Maurier, with whiskers, and board, coat tails flying, and a monstrously aged-looking top hat; Cicoly Courtneidge, with a black straw sailor perched perilously on one side of hor head and. a bustle of flowered gingham so. large that it must have seriously impeded her progress; and Heather Thatcher, Douglas Byng, Jack Hulbert, Nelson Koys, and others in equally amusing attire, literally prauced through tho polka. "When the performers returned to take' their scats at the Eoyal supper table, the Duchoss —a scintillating figure in a floral pattorn silver brocade dress and turqoise and diamond necklace and bracelets—left her place at the head to como and take a vacant seat at the side and talk to them. '

" Among the 20 guests at the Duchess' table wero Mawab Assam Jah Bahadur, the heir to the Nizam of Hyderabad, and his younger brother, Nawab. Muasczam, Jah Bahadur, who recently iirrivod in England on a three months' holiday on which, it is stated, they are going to spend £30,000. i Except for tho gay mauve and greon turbans, respectively, they were clad in the most sombre black, with coats buttoned high up to their chins."