BRILLIANT ACTING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20231, 15 February 1934, Page 3

BRILLIANT ACTING.

Charles Laughton Brings Henry VIII. to Life.

Hans Holbein’s famous painting of the swaggering Henry comes to fullblooded life in “ The Private Life of Henry VIII.” the excellent British him now in its second week at the Plaza Theatre. In this colourful and roistering comedy of Tudor j times, Charles Laughton’s brilliance recreates the impetuous, domineering, sensual monarch, principally, as the title indicates, from the more intimate side of palace life. Yet, although the picture is the very reverse of the traditional “ historical drama,” behind the comedy that supplies the foreground is seen the pageant of England’s greatness during one of the most colourful periods of the nation’s history. It was an age of contrasts, and the brilliant direction of Alexander Korda has made the most of the humour lying in the absurdities and ironies of the halfmediaeval, half-modern manners of the time. From every point of view the production is outstanding; settings are lavish and beautifully photographed, the sound effects are excellent, and the acting of the subsidiary characters is first-class. The Henry Laughton creates is possessed of an astonishing and uproarious vitality. In his own pride, he cannot avoid being ridiculous, yet he has his moments of greatness and also his moments of deepest tragedy. Hi? faults are accentuated rather than glossed over, and yet Laughton is able to make his character essentially a sympathetic one. Good *' shorts complete the programme.