THEATRE LAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 75, 25 September 1937, Page 11

THEATRE LAND

DOINGS IN LONDON

FILM ACTOR HYSTERIA

(By Nolle M. Scanlan.)

LONDON, September 1.

London is once more waking up after its August lapse. The "Proms" aro in full swing, with Sir Henry Wood conducting, and the Ballet begins at Covent Garden this month. The first big theatrical success of the autumn season is Priestley's "Time and the Conways," which was launched last week and was acclaimed by all the critics. It follows something of the plan of his first play "Dangerous Corner." It shows an English family at the end of the war, all the sons and daughters full of plans and hopes. The second act reveals the same group in 1937, with disappointment and disillusionment the portion of most of them. Then the third act takes you back to the time of the first act. I have not seen it yet, but it is said to be the most interesting.play at present in London. Ivor Novello's new spectacle at Drury Lane opens tomorrow night, and as Mr. Priestley has two more new plays promised for this season, things theatrical should begin to move.

Meanwhile a new cinema star has swung into the London horizon, and failing any other attraction to. lure the crowds, his arrival inspired what one paper termed another "Battle of Waterloo." Robert Taylor has provided a silly season sensation that has not been equalled since the Loch Ness Monster stir. This modest young man, who, until a couple o,f years ago, was an unknown young clerk, is now "everybody's sweetheart," I understand. Of course, much of this demonstration was organised publicity, a stunt to boost him with the British public, but undoubtedly he has won all the girls by his appearance on the screen. He has come to England to make a film, "A Yank at Oxford." For the past fourteen days his life has been a series of hysterical mob adoration. They wept in Hollywood, so we are told, when he left for six months in England. They mobbed his plane six thousand strong at a landing field in Texas on his way over. When he boarded the Berengaria in New York they stormed the ship, invaded his cabin, and, it is said, some even kissed the gangplank on which he walked.

At Southampton, where he arrived, detectives guarded the dock, and as his train steamed out of the station hundreds of girls ran a'ong the platform waving, shouting, singing, pressing for autographs, and trying to shake hands with him. At Waterloo Station the mob was about ten thousand strong, and they had to get out the mounted police. ,The arrival platform was railed off as if for Royalty. However, they kidnapped him bodily, thrust him into a milk lift, and hustled him out by the luggage subway, where' a car was waiting, the engine ticking over, and he got away through back streets. When the. sleek limousines left the station and the waiting crowd found that. Taylor was not in one of them , they booed the occupants—all this at 10 o'clock at night. He must certainly have been impressed with the phlegmatic English after such a welcome.

When they discovered they had been tricked the people swarmed up to the hotel, which was guarded by police. Taylor is described as a mannerly and obliging young, man, and the police do not anticipate mUch trouble, but they have asked him not to do his shopping at rush hours, in order to avoid auy further congestion of traffic. Two days later he slipped ■ over to Paris, but there no such mad welcome awaited him. He arrived unnoticed and went his peaceful way. When he comes back to London he will settle down to make his film, and by that time the hysteria should have subsided.