VANBRUGH-BOUCICAULT SEASON

Evening Star, Issue 20129, 20 March 1929, Page 5

VANBRUGH-BOUCICAULT SEASON

‘ON APPROVAL ? TO-NIGHT The Vanbrugh-Boucicault Company last night at His Majesty’s Theatre, presented finally 4 All the King’s Horses,’ and depite the adverse weather conditions it again attracted a good audience. The talented company deserved the hearty applause bestowed on it, the quality of the entertainment provided being seldom equalled in Dimdoin. The play is an exceptionally good one, but the perfect staging and admirable characterisation by the company made it doubly pleasing. The successful business man, Wilfred Everitt (a character made a great success of by Mr Dion Boucicault) finds to his cost that business is not everything, but home and children are something that really count. His wife (Miss Irene Vanbrugh) makes him realise this, and although he is apt to forget his lesson, one is leo to suppose that all ends happily. Tlie whole evenly-balanced company made the clever story a complete success. The electric lighting failed during the secofid act, and a lamp was placed in the wings The play was carried on under difficult circumstances until the lights went on again, FAMOUS COMEDY SUCCESS

To-night Miss Vanbrugh and Mr Boucicault will present for the first time Frederick Lonsdale’s clever and famous comedy success, 4 On Approval,’ which is regarded as one of the best plays created during the past ten years. The story of ‘On Approval ‘ is aptly summed up in its title. As a moans of arriving at a just estimate of each other’s qualifications for married life, Mrs Wislack (Irene Vanbrugh), a widow, suggests tiiat she and her timid admirer, Richard Halton (Mr J. B. Rowe), shall spend three weeks together m a lonely' spot in Scotland. The same idea occurs to the Duke of Bristol (Dion Boucicault), a bankrupt peer, and Helen Hayle (Rowena Ronald), a young hut brainy maiden, who speedily follow in their tracks. Three weeks’ association between these couples bring about a situation that is not solved until the most amusing and diverting incidents have been enacted, and the interest and fnn flow on right to the final full of the curtain “It is,” wrote a Melbourne critic, “one of the gayest and most good-humoured entertainments provided by Miss Vanbrugh and Mr Boucicault, and in their respective roles llicv are at their verv host.”