HAPPY WARRIOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23527, 16 June 1938, Page 12

HAPPY WARRIOR

Mr David Mac Kane has written a new play about David Livingstone, and is himself playing Livingstone in it at the Grafton Theatre in London. It is a play which will give a better idea of a missionary’s life than many a biography, which often sees the hero, but overlooks the ordinary man who grew into the hero. Livingstone’s faults are frankly shown, but so are his humour and his tenderness. Mary Livingstone is delightful, and the_ African parts are played by real Africans. In the first round of conflict, with Heindrick Potgeiter, the unmannerly Boor leader, who accuses Livingstone of supplying firearms to the natives, Livingstone comes off triumphant, and then one of the tragedies of his life is shown, when a Christian chief is shot dead before his eyes by slave traders; it seemed to David that his efforts to combat slavery met with little success. , , . The tea party at home, when he has to climb in the window to avoid the hero-worshipping crowd, is most amusing. David tells Mary how he has been describing the wonder of the Victoria Falls to the Queen, who remarked: “I am honoured to have them named after me.” “Indeed you are, Ma’am,” said Livingstone! The play is altogether an encouraging story, a good tonic for these days.