THE THEATRE.
"THE BLUE PETER" AT THE PRINCES.
To make a good, serviceable drama which will feed 100,000 Englishmen, take the following ingredients : One scene in a far, tropical land (Galsworthy and White Cargo brand) ; one scene in a low-down public-house (Anna Christie or The Flame, or any other brand will do) ; and one English home scene. Sweeten the last liberally with the best Barrie saccharine. 'Boil the whole for' two and a half hours in a purée of Mental Conflict, drop in one dreadful Shavian swear-word (Pygmalion brand), and serve cold.
Mr. Temple Thurston has followed this recipe carefully, and the result will undoubtedly be popular. His cookery is no rough-and-ready affair, for he has been careful about the little things. Thus, in the tropical scene he has not omitted the real natives and the beautiful native girl tightly dressed in striped silk, without whom no 'tropical scene is complete, and he includes, of course, several fierce-spoken Englishmen in khaki shirts (open at the neck) and khaki breeches, and more than the customary allowance of rifle-fire (blank). In the second scene—the low-down pub scene—we meet the same fierce-spoken Englishmen, clad no longer in khaki shirts and breeches, but (since the pub is in Liverpool) in clothes appropri- ate to their station and the Liverpool climate. And here Mr.
• Thurston has wisely introduced the young woman who is no better than she ought to be, and the songs and coarse laughter
• (off). In the English home scene we arc shown the sweet young wife—charmingly young but unbearably sweet—and 'the old, white-haired mother who does endless needlework over the fire and is so understanding and so gently, but so intolerably, wise. And, of course, there are the 'children (off) and that most touching thing—a Christmas-tree. Then there .is the mental conflict. The strong iron-jawed hero who, after his adventures i tropical -bachelorhood, -has sealed
down to an office, a sweet young wife and an English home, keeps his disused tropical outfit, not in the boxroom, but under the dining-room sideboard, and, as the sweet young wife and the wise old mother observe with concern, still assiduously deans his tropical rifle. Such behaviour in an English dining- room can have only one meaning ; he is hankering .(and after the home-life scene I cannot blame him) after the old, free life. Which is he to choose ?
A visit to the play will decide. And if you are an average vigorous, sentimental Englishman, not much given to thought and introspection, accustomed to say that you don't know much about art but you know what you like, you will find The Blue Peter a lively, moving, and delightfully varied entertainment. But if, by any accident, your critical and aesthetical faculties have been developed, if you have allowed yourself to become an intellectual and a highbrow, then you must avoid this play as you would the foul fiend himself, because—so strangely are men divided by the nature of their wits—you will find it superficial, commonplace, and extremely tedious.
Mr. George Tully gave an honest, straightforward rendering of the iron-jawed hero, and Miss Dorothy Minto and Mr. Fred O'Donovan were delightful in their brief parts in Act 3. I did not like Miss Cathleen Nesbitt as the sweet young wife ; by a slurring diction and a slurring manner she made what was already far too sweet sweeter still. The play should have a long run.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG.
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