THE
" Twenty to One." At the Victoria Palace. " On Approval."
At the Aldwych.
THERE is no high falutin' nonsense- about Twenty to (Me. It is a lively rough-and-tumble show, with a sketchy story revolving round an anti-.gambling league with headquarters on the edge of a race-course. The humour lies largely in the constant mis- understanding of betting terms and rhyming slang, which puts the anti-gamblers at cross purposes with the gamblers, and gives Lupino Lane frequent opportunities to register baffled rage by throwing his grey bowler hat violently on to the ground. This action, incidentally, is the only one which he performs too often ; for the rest, he is of course the mainstay, or rather the main- spring, of the show. His mercurial and aggressive cockneydom is a perpetual joy, whether he is indulging in those piercing butcher-boy whistles which cause nervous persons to leap in- voluntarily into the air, whether he is giving a practical demon- stration of tic-tac methods to the Secretary of the anti-gambling league, or whether he is performing his agile somersaults down a Hight of stairs. He is on the stage nearly all the time, and not for an instant does he relax his flow of gags, winks, whistles and all the perky, sparrow-like movements which make him so endearing to us as a person as well as a first-class music-hall comedian in the old style. .
He is admirably supported by a large and -energetic company. Richard Dolinan, as the young prude who falls for a flutter in order to obtain enough money to elope, extracts plenty of humour from his inability to master the intricacies of the race-course. Greta Fayne, as his lady-love, dances gracefully and shows a sense of fun all too rare in a musical comedy heroine. As for Winnie Sloane, as a female prude constantly and (until very late in the proceedings) unjustly suspected of secret drinking, one can only say that her contortions both of voice and body belong very nearly to the realm of phantasy, and that on several occasions she almost acts Mr. Lane himself clean out of the picture. '
Twenty to One, then, is a good, hearty evening's entertainment for the whole family, and stands in marked contrast to the faded ?nd dated atmosphere of Lonsdale's On Approval. If the experi- ment of reviving this comedy of manners which so delighted us in the 'twenties had to be attempted, surely it should have been done as a period piece—square cut dresses, short skirts, jazz cushions, cloche hats and all. As it is, the play is no more than a rather melancholy curio, although, in justice to the author's memory, it must be recorded that, with the exception df Eric Cowley, it is not very well served by a cast whose distinguished names are not, on this occasion, matched by distinguished acting.
BASEL WRIGHT.
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