BILL, BERT, AND ALF.

Western Star, 6 April 1920, Page 2

BILL, BERT, AND ALF.

“ THE BETTER ’OLE.”

Bill: Boys, there is times when 1 wish Id been born a. girl.”

Alf: What’nd been the use? You’d only have ’ad Bert chasm 1 you. A fragment of humour from the “ Better ’Ole,” Bruce Bairnsfather’s great comedy, to he staged in More’s Hall on Thursday night next. Bill’s quiet fund of humour dominates every scene as the moustached old walrus dominated the original, cartoons in “Fragments from France.” There is the regimental merry-making with the French girl outside the Cafe des Oiseaux, just behindl the front, where the heavyweight run-to-seed old regular disarmed the spy and appropriated his treacherous plans* with an easy-going and “ soft cushion to

you” in response to the furious “Vous etes mi cochon.” Marching orders hiring the audience nearer the firing, line. The three Musketeers, tired and muddy, march onward to the chcer-o of Bill’s apt remark, “Boys, we’ll miss this war when it’s over,” and join in song, “We Wish We was in Blighty.” The homely side of war is further illustrated by “In the Trenches” noth sandbags and a glowing charcoal fire near the duigout, fronn which Bill emerges with a loaf on his bayonet to “ Toast the Staff of Life on the Pint of Heath.” Bill here gives voice to the -tuneful ditty, “ She’s Venus de Milo to Me,” in passages of honest affection, in which he recalls his faithful Maggie (Mrs Bill). The hero’s arrest for suspected com•mimitation, with the enemy rin Ins return from the expedition in which he saved a French battalion ;by blowing up a bridge, is preceded by a scene of farewell with Bert. Bill is courtmartialled, but ultimately decorated. The final scene finds Bill back in his village home somewhere in England. Although Bill, Alf and Bert are the central figures in Bairnsfather’s play, the -supporting cast is. , a lengthy one. The box- plan js at i AkhurskSj More’s Hall.