THEATRE
WHATNA ploys are yon they hae amang the bens an birkies oh? This notice certainly deserves to be written in the purest lallans, but the effort of translating it into those artificially cracked wood-notes is too much:
I shall have to do my best to cope in English with the blast of Scots folk-ways to which this comedy by William Templeton treats us. Imagine the head of a clan, proud of his ancient name, proud of his sons, who is suddenly descended on by three of their wives and finds these gals to be not at all the thing. Marcus McLeod, played with great charm and sense of comedy by Roger Livescy, has only one course to take. The wives shall stay with him until they have acquired a proper sense of the behaviour befitting members of his family. If, in order to persuade them to stay, he has to use violence, so much the worse for them. So Ilionka the Hungarian countess and Pixie the dancer and Leafy the girl with a secret alternately shock and are shocked by the Highlands, bully and arc bullied by Marcus McLeod. It is quite a sight to sec Mr. Livesey doing his lioness-taming: he cxtracts the utmost from his role of kindly eccentric and, in so doing, makes a pleasant little comedy into something richer and deeper. He is well supported by Jean Cadell as the old family servant with opinions of her own and by James Gibson as the local Sunday- school teacher, keeping the Sabbath and much addicted to whisky. As to the play itself, it has •a good situation, but the first scene could do with speeding up and the last is somewhat excessively sentimental.
ANTHONY HARTLEY
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