AMUSEMENTS

Northern Advocate, 5 February 1934, Page 10

AMUSEMENTS

, ■■ | “BERKELEY SQUARE” | AT THE REGENT I j Like many a popular play adapted jto screen treatment, John L. Balderston’s “Berkeley Square,” under the direction of Prank Lloyd, of “Cavalcade” fame, has proved an undoubted success. Leslie Howard’s gentle humour and impressively restrained acting in the role of Peter Standish, is by Avay of being a masterpiece of the dramatic art. Peter Standish lias inherited an old house in Berkeley Square, London, from a distant relative, Among old papers he has found a diary of an earlier Peter Standish, wdio lived in the eighteenth century and whose portrait might be a picture of himself. Suddenly lie finds himself transported back to the past, a modern man taking the place of the eighteenth century relative. He meets his owui ancestors, face to face, speaks to some as if they were already dead and amazes everyone by talking of events in history w'hich have not yet occurred. He finds himself engaged to a cousin, Kate—but falls in love wdth her sister, Helen. Yet he knows from the old diary that lie must marry Kate. He cannot change events that have already occurred. Helen loves him, too —and this love makes it possible for her to understand when ho tells her, hopelessly, that lie is a man from the future—a time wdien she will be a hundred years dead. For a brief time they are happy even in a love that is hopeloss and then Peter returns sadly to the present—witli Helen’s promise that lie W'ill find the epitaph from her gravestone cut deep to outlast the years, Peter finds the grave—and chooses to live alone a life filled with a. strange lo\e for Helen. As Helen, the young 1 English actress, Heather Angel, gives a j charming portrayal, while Valerie ! Taylor, as her elder sister, Irene i Brow r ne, as the mother, Alan Afow’bray, ! Beryl Afercer and Juliette Compton are i outstanding among the supporting eastJ “Berkeley Square” is certainly "a pielure (ha( none should miss. Showing a( the Regent to-night and on Tuesday. .Supports are: Cartoon, A Day in! Tokio, and newsteels—CinGsound and : Graphic. i