CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
Two Dozen Red Roses. By Aldo de Benedetti. Adapted by Kenneth Horne. (Lyric.)
I AM afraid this is a bad play. The roses, accompanied by anonymous love-letters, are delivered daily to Signora Verani, and although she has been a faithful wife for twenty years, they induce in her a state of mental infidelity. But her unknown admirer does not in fact exist. The roses and the billets doux come from her husband, who observes with considerable misgivings their effect upon her. The construction of this two-sided triangle is an ingenious device, eminently suited to the requirements of light comedy ; but though the basic ingredients of a soufflé are there, the dish served up to us is suet pudding. Implacably, interminably, and at the pace of a Government depart- ment, the play unwinds itself, and not even the charm and accom- plishment of Miss Evelyn Laye as its central figure can conceal from us the fact that it is dull. Mr. Michael Shepley, as a dyspeptic friend of the family, has some reasonably funny things to say and says them very well indeed, but Mr. Edwin Styles and Mr. Michael Yannis, doubtless striving to make the best of a bad job, make the worst of it by over-acting in a rather painful manner. The production, by Mr. Richard Bird, is not at all good.
PETER FLEMING.
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