THE THEATRE
" Up and Doing." At the Saville Theatre.
THE productions bombed out of London last 'autumn are return- ing like homing birds (Mr. Firth Shephard's nest at the Saville has been a bit chipped by high-explosives). Up and Doing has none of the dated air with which some have returned, nor has it the dust-and-debris, out-of-the-dustbin manner of the post-blitz Orchids and Onions. Mr. Cyril Ritchard, in red tabs, singing with jerky ferocity "One of the Whitehall Warriors ":
" Whenever the syrens start to blow. I'm one of the first to go Below ";
Mr. Ritchard, in a blonde wig and a slinky gown with an un- reliable zip, hungry and horrible and prehensile as a torch-singer, or clumsy with ostrich-feathers as a fan-dancer, would carry any revue savagely and energetically to success. But here, too, are Mr. Stanley Holloway reciting " Young Albert Evacuated " and Mr. Leslie Henson more than ever like a tortoise negotiating every bit of lettuce as it comes. Miss Patricia Burke, with her songs about moonlight and dreams, seems rather to have missed her war: she was born to be the idol of the dugout, and one or two sketches, particularly a silly boring joke called "Adapted from the French," would do discredit to Orchids and Onions or Nineteen Naughty One. Otherwise Up and Doing deserves only praise, and the interrupted recital of "The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God " supplies the most amusing five minutes you
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