Page 6 Advertisements Column 3

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17231, 24 December 1923, Page 6

The way some present-day critic* write of Shakespeare is enough to make old-fashioned bardolaters throw fit® (writes a Sydney “ Bulletin ” correspondent). “ Cymbeline,” when produced lately in London, got a “ bad Press.” “The Times” said that “ without the “ Shakespeare touch * it would be one of the worst plays ever written.” The “Standard ” described it as “ long-drawn-out disillusionment," and the “'Chronicle” thought that, parts of it suggested that the Bard wrote ‘ m a state of mild mental aberration ’* The “Daily New® ’ wished the performance ‘’were quite impossible” . the “ Sunday Times ” thought it a poor play written by * tired man: and St. John Ervme, in the “Observer,” concluded that Shakespeare tinkered with an existing play to oblige a friend, and was bored in the process. All of which doe* William a better service than going into ecstasies user everything he v rota