The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 6

6 THE OBSERVER, SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 1955 At the Theatre At the Films TWO'S COMPANY PROSE ON TOP By KENNETH TYNAN ill ms Music The Ring Complete By PETER HEYWORTH TT is not many years since denigration of Wagner was a hall-mark of good taste. No doubt the exaggerated fervour of the pre-1914 Wagnerians was bound to bring in its wake an equally exaggerated revulsion. But it was incautious of Cecil Gray to declare that Wagner had perished with the Nazi regime and to refer to Mr. Ernest Newman as the last of the dodos." For to-day it is the fulmina-tions that it was once de rigueur to pour on the dominant musical genius of the second half of the nineteenth century that have a sadly dated ring. What was so ludicrous about the Wagnerians of the pre-Newman vintage was their ingenuous belief that their hero was not only a great musician but an outstanding poet and original philosopher.

It was Mr. Newman who, over forty years ago, first drove a clear dividing line between the composer and the pretentious farrago of nonsense served up in umpteen volumes by the thinker." And the fruits of this division are to be seen in the marked revival of interest in Wagner that has taken place since 1945. Television Through the Keyhole By ALAN BRIEN T)0 you ever have the feeling that you have been here before? Mr. J. B.

Priestley does. Indeed, he can claim to be the inventor of this strange brand of bilious nostalgia. His adventures in time have allowed him to play some unexpected roles, and at the moment he is a rich man's poor man, the Evelyn Waugh of Bradford, the Kipling of the Empire (Leicester-square). And if we substitute his name for Kipling's in Oscar Wilde's essay, we have an acute summing-up of his talents. From the point of view of literature," said Wilde, Mr.

Priestley is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of fife, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than anyone has ever known it. Dickens knew its clothes and its comedy. Mr. Priestley knows its essence and its seriousness.

He is our first authority on the second-rate, and has seen marvellous things through keyholes." After this, it was inevitable that Mr. Priestley should appear in his own television series. And introducing the programme on Wednesday night, he described television as an intimate domestic medium which is also a pretty accurate definition of a keyhole when you come to think of it. On my screen Mr. Priestley looked like Charles La ugh ton doing an imitation of Lord Hore-Belisha.

And this was an appropriate kind of illusion for the programme. Against a background of witty drawings by Bruce Ansgrave, Mr. Priestley manoeuvred two actors and two actresses who impersonated a wide variety ol British bores. Communications was the theme. And there were some very funny moments pointless cocktail chatter with the woman who says I never dream on Sundays, isn't that odd 7 Tony Richardson produced the programme with that deft and imaginative informality which was exactly right for television.

But all the way through I had the oddest feeling that 1 had been here before. Perhaps it is some mysterious race-memory of pre-war West End revues I never saw. Whatever the explanation, too many of the jokes were tired old funsters who should have been retired years ago. Mr. Priestley once upon a time wrote a sparkling play called Ever Since Paradise." which brilliantly developed these Pirandello techniques.

1 hope that in his future programmes he will stick to a continuous fantasia on contemporary themes say Marriage, Journalism, Politics, and Education. TTHE same evening produced an average edition of Panorama, with only the regular piece of dull documentary missing. This usually appears to be included on the theory that no one will think this TV magazine serious unless he suffers ten minutes of boredom. There were also some incredibly childish visual illustrations to Max Robertson's explanation of the Slate of Emergency. Are there really people so dim that phrases like a spanner in the works or power cut have to be portrayed by waving spanners and snipping scissors The high spot, as usual, was the ventriloquial comedy serial.

Educating Malcolm," in which Muggeridge begged Ed Mur-row to reveal the secret of successful interviewing. To-day's Radio and TV Programmes Page 9 The player who thinks Giraudoux unactable is in the wrong profession. Mr. Harold Clurman, tie director, has tried hard to teach old dogs new tricks, but the right note of vocal aristocracy is only intermittently struck. Listening to Giraudoux should be like watching a series of lightning water-colours, dashed off by a master; some of the present company make do with ponderous cartoons, licking the lead and plunging it deep into the paper.

This is the case with Mr. Walter Fitzgerald's Ulysses, a dour and laboured performance. Miles Catherine Lacey (Hecuba) and Leueen MacGrath (Cassandra) shoot nearer the right, ironic target, on which Mr. John Laurie, as a whiskery old bard, scores a distinct bull's-eye. Miss Diane Cilento, though fetchingiy got up in what I can best describe as a Freudian slip, gives us paste jewellery instead of the baleful diamond Giraudoux had in mind for Helen.

It is Mr. Michael Redgrave, as Hector, who bears the evening's brunt. He is clearly much happier in the emotional bits than in the flicks of wit which spark and speckle them; but even so, this is a monumental performance, immensely moving, intelligent in action and in repose never less than a demi-god. In the presence of such an actor and such a play, I will forgive much. Especially do I feel for anyone unlucky enough to have to stumble and clamber over the obstacle-course of Mr.

Loudon Sainthill's set. It is enough to make a chamois nervy. NOTHER prose banquet is pro- vided by Mr. Emtvn Williams js Dylan Thomas Crowing Up 1 (Globe). Out puds the crafty Welshman, smiles like a spy, bows like a knife, and we're olf on an excursion into the poet's childhood and adolescence, ending with his arrival in London and a mad misadventure in a Paddington furniture shop.

Not since Dickens, or the best of O'Casey. has prose jumped through such gorgeously funny hoops; and Mr. Williams's timing and mimic gift seem to sharpen with the years. Perhaps Dylan Thomas would have burped at the primness and gentility which Mr. Williams has brought to his work; what was lusty and swaggering has been slightly tidied up.

But this is a small criticism of a glorious soloist. All that is needed to perfect the evening is for somebody to talk Mr. Williams out of reciting And death shall have no dominion at the end. The poet's own recording, booming from the bare stage as it did a year ago at the memorial programme in his honour, would be a much better idea. Mr.

Leslie Phillips's portrait of an oversexed death-dicer is all 1 care to remember about The Lost Generation (Garrick), Miss Patricia Hol-lender's tribute to the Battle of Britain. The authoress is painfully sincere; but sincerity, at some levels of intelligence, is a positive vice. First Nights To-morrow Ruth Draper (St Martin's). Tuesday: Macbeth (Stratford-upon-Avon. Wednesday The Marriage uf Figaro (Glyndebourne).

Thursday Mourning Becomes Eleclra (Arts); The Lady and the Fool (Covent Garden). IN spite of a few bad performances and a setting uniquely hideous, I do not believe that anyone could emerge from Tiger at the Gates (Apollo) unaware that what had just hit him was a masterpiece. For this is Giraudoux's La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas Lieu," brought to us at last, after twenty years of impatience, in a methodical translation by Mr. Christopher Fry. It remains the final comment on the superfluity of war, and the highest peak in the mountain-range of modern French theatre.

At the lowest estimate, il is a great occasional play, in the sense that its impact might be doubled if war seemed imminent; but to call it dated because nowadays we are at peace is to ignore its truest warning, which is that nothing more surelv rouses the sleeping tiger of war than the prospect of universal tranquillity. What is to engage us is the process whereby the Trojan war nearly failed to happen. Returning disillusioned from one campaign. Hector finds another impending, to send Helen back to the Greeks he will undergo anv humiliation, even the dishonour of his wife. Paris, his brother, gives in to him easily, but Helen is harder to persuade.

The fates, in choosing her for their instrument, have endowed her with an icy indifference to Hector's enormous compassion I'm sure," she says. that people pity each other to the same extent that they pity themselves." Yet she, too. puis herself in his hands. Breaking all precedents. Hector reluses to make the traditional speech of homage to his fallen soldiers, instead, we have the majestic tirade in which he rejoices with those who survived, (he cowards who live to make love to the wives of the dead.

His last stumbling-block is Ulysses, wily and circumspect, who reminds him, as they amicably chal, that a convivial meeting at the summit 15 always the preamble to war; but even he agrees to gamble against destiny and take Helen home in peace. In the play's closing moments, war is declared. To reveal how would be an insult to those who know the text and a terrible depnvaiion to those who do not. Enough to say that history passes into the keeping of (Max Beer-bohm's phrase) those incomparable poets, Homer." CANNOT but marvel at the vir-tuosity of Giraudoux's prose It embraces grandeur and littleness in one gigantic clasp; having carved a heroic group in granite, it can turn to the working of tiny heads on cherrystones. No playwright of our time can change gear so subtly, from majestic gloom to crystalline wit.

Sometimes, in the mass debates, the verbal glitter is overpowering, but in duologues Giraudoux has no rival. Hector's scenes with Helen in the first act and with Ulvsses in the second ring in the mind like doubloons flung down on marble. Is it objected that English actors jib at long stretches of omate prose Or that they are unused to playing tragic scenes for laughj and comic scenes for tears If so, they had better releara their craft. LAMBERT sister says, are the terrible and her sister's example long em- Wttr-A lil, JaiinWr- in-law in whose house she is living is persuasive. And the delayed adolescents, the group of stags who comprise Marty's friends and whose amorous exploits are mainly confined to boasting, are really frightened at the thought of one of them relinquishing his aimless bachelorhood.

In this drifting everyday world, in fact, when Marty meets Clara and they like each other, it appears cataclysmic. One night of tentative courtship is enough to reveal secret layers of character in a whole anxious little community. Without its close and acute observation of people, and its vivid dialogue technique Chayefsky has a talent for terse, idiomatic dialogue that reminds one of Saroyan at his best the incidents in Marty would seem impossibly slender for a ninety-minute film. As it is, that most difficult task of irradiating the commonplace, and finding tensions in it without ever manufacturing false drama, has been adroitly achieved. Marty's decision to break awav from his friends, assert his independence and see Clara again, has all the necessary force for a dramatic ending.

The whole film is touching, absorbing, and has a tellingly deceptive casualness, as if one were overlooking scenes from the lives of neighbours that one happened to like. Delbert Mann, who directed the I play on television, transfers it to the screen without any loss of intimacy. Limited means, no doubt, account for some incompleteness in the backgrounds one would have liked to see everything more placed," the in which Marty's house stands, and so on and for an occasional Iilcralncss. But the atmosphere of a bleak, crowded dance hall, of the dowdy interiors of Marty's home, is sharply realised. Ernest Borcmne as Marly, burly, amiable, with his moments of great crumpled despair and incredulous elation, and Betsy Blair as Clara, eager, tongue-tied nervously smiling, make the ordinary lovers wonderfully real.

Two other players, repeating their television performances, Esther Minciotti (the mother) and Joe Mantell (Angie. Marty's best friend among the stags are also outstanding. AT the Plaza, Far Horizons offers us Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston as Merriwcther Lewis and William Clark, leaders of a military expedition in 1803 to chart the Louisiana Purchase territory and open up the way to the Pacific coast, a splendid pioneering subject written and directed with an almost prostrate lack of zest and imagination. Revelation of wild and unknown landscapes, encounters with Indian tribes, are perfunctorily handled, and inordinate time is taken up with arguments over a squaw. In the same programme, Danny Kaye commentates Assignment Children, a twenty-minute record of his Far Eastern tour on behalf of the United Nations Children's Fund.

Good will abounds and there are some pleasant moments, but the Pied Pi perish attitude to cute little piccaninnies occasionally grates. C. A. Lejeunc resumes next week. clX jpt i By GAVIN I SET out in Marty Paddy inayeisjcy remarked in an author's note to his original television nlav.

to write" a love story, the most ordinary love story in the world." He wanted the settings, the circumstances, to be as commonplace as possible; he didn't want his lovers to be particularly attractive, and he didn't want them to be drawn to each other only by physical desire. The film of Marty (Odeon, Leicester Square), which Chayefsky has expanded from his own television script, is perhaps even more remarkable in its new medium. The muted and ironic tenderness of its description of two people beginning to fall in love appears almost enormous contrast to those coups de foudrc with which the American screen is littered. Marty is a butcher in the Bronx. He is thirty-four.

He comes from an Italian-American family, his brothers and his sister have got married, and everyone asks him why he is still single. It is not, certainly, for want of trying. Like his friends in the local bar, he roams the Stardust Ballroom on Saturday nights, though unlike them he isn't looking for something out of Mickey Spillane or the sexy magazines. So that when he befriends Clara, a nervous little chemistry teacher deserted by an escort in search of something fancier, he finds himself attracted to her shyness, her melancholy, her conviction that she, too, will never be loved. But his friends are quick to express disapproval Clara is plain.

Clara is a dog." and a man gets himself a bad reputation going around with a gill like that. Marty is someone who lives in a trap, a lonely man surrounded by lonely people. Now that he has found a girl, his widowed mother sees her last son leaving her, and a life of solitude ahead. These, as her BALLET By RICHARD BUCKLE rpO the 190th performance of Les Sylphidea at the Royal Opera House, and the 33rd performance of Tirestes, 1 took a friend from Yorkshire who is fond of music but had been to the ballet only once before. It strikes me that his reactions may probably be more interesting than mine.

He liked the music and Bcnoi' set for Les Sylphides," and thought Margot Fontcyn was as light as a feather. The pas de deux appeared to him as an expression of ideal love, which, indeed, it is; and he singled out Rosemary Lindsay for special praise, I think because her Prelude is the dance with a most obvious appeal. Anya Linden and David Blair were the other principal dancers in this work, of which perhaps the corps de ballet is really the star." It was a performance of high standard. Tiresias my friend thought sexy, but apart from that he said it was a lot of tripe. He suggested that all great works should have a sort of simplicity about them, but that this made no impression except muddle and trying to be clever.

He liked the snakes when they were standing up, but not when they rolled on the ground. He thought the male corps much weaker than the women, and said they ought to watch Guardsmen to see how to do it. He said you could see the producer had put everything into it, coloured lights and a woman going up on a lift at the back, but it was still all nonsense. He didn't mind the music; it might have been good, but you never got a chance to listen to it. Florence Festival rpHE English Opera Group, appear-ing at the Maggio Musicale this week-end, will find it hard to surpass the standard set by German productions.

In "Cosl Fan Tutte." West Berlin's Municipal Theatre gave us perfection down to the minutest detail. This Carl Ebert production used no singers of exceptional fame, but rather voices disciplined to achieve the equilibrium and restrained proportions which gave a total effect of outstanding unity. The small orchestra, under Artur Rother, was exemplary. The Frankfurt Theatre's Rosenkavalier." also meticulously prepared, captured ideally the atmosphere of Strauss's satire, but the chocolate-box-cum-Dresden china decor was too faded in style to arouse enthusiasm. Georg Solti steered the fine Frankfurt orchestra through the mazes of Strauss's score with exceptional lucidity.

By comparison, the Florentine production of Otello was a riot. This opera was cancelled after a stormy premiere ruined by violent protests against the vocal inadequacy of the protagonist, and the show could continue only after a substitute was unearthed and pushed on the stage in a costume which smothered him. This incident ruined a promising spectacle. R. Smith Brindle.

CONCERTS ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL TO-MORROW, at 8 p.m. PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA conducted by GEORGE HURST Traffic Overture Piano Concerto No. 1 BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 1 DENIS MATTHEWS 126. 10-.

76. 51-. 36. Hall and 1BBS A TILLETT 124. Wipnore Si- W.l.

Recital by the French Pianist SELMA HERSCOVICI WIGMORE HALL TUES. NEXT, at 7.30 91: 6-, 3-. at Hall (WEL 2141) A IBBS A TILLETT 114. Wlxmore W.l. QUEENIE ALLEN-WEBBER (Contralto) Pianoforte GERALD MOORE WIGMORE HALL WED.

NEXT, at 7.30 9-. 61-. 31-. at Hall (WEL 2141) A IBBS A TILLETT 124. Wlxmore W.l.

WIGMORE HALL THURSDAYS at 7.30. SIX CONCERTS OF ENGLISH SONG Third Concert THURSDAY NEXT 16th and 17th CENTURY POETS Alfred DeUer, Alexander Yana. Brace Boyce, Deiaanaa Dpr. AinBan SMag Oaartct, ad Gerald Moors. 6'-, SI: at Hall (WEL 2141) A IBBS A TILLETT Ltd- 124.

Wbpnorc W.l. GASPAR CASSADO The Fxaauaa Spwatsh CeBM Pianoforte: GERALD MOORE Clarinet GERVME DE PEYER WIGMORE HALL FRIDAY NEXT, at 7.30 9-. 6-. 3-. at Hall (WEL 2141) A IBBS A TILLETT Ltd- 114.

Wlxmore St- 1. WILPRID VAN WYCK Ltd. announce PIANOFORTE RECITAL BY JAN1NE DACOSTA WIGMORE HALL, TO-MORROW, at 7.30. 9-. 61: it-, at Han.

WEL 1141 A Axenta. Wed Naxl Jassa a. ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Last Two Performances 2.30 7.30 A FILM PRESENTATION IN COLOUR of a Special Performance at Salzburx. 1954. I.

R. MAXWELL creaeata MOZART'S DON GIOVANNI INTERNATIONAL CAST VIENNA STATE OPERA CHORUS VIENNA raUJJARMONIC ORCHESTRA WILHELM FURTW ANGLER Direction Pant frlain Staxe Halwail Graf for Harmony Films Ltd. Manaiemcnt HAROLD HOLT Ltd. Afternoon 5-. 76.

106. 126. Eva- 106 A 126 only. All bookable. WAT 3191 A Axis.

RADIO NOTES Caravaggio's Youth with a Ram at Wildenstein's. Seicento By NEVILE WALL1S THE principal art event this week overshadows, but cannot eclipse the pleasures of the Hazlitt Gallery's exhibition of paintings of the Barbizon School. Nor should be overlooked the agreeable minor talents revealed alike in the chalky, partially abstracted landscapes and still-lifes of William Pol at the Mayor Gallery, and in the romanticised drawings by Katerina Wil-czynski at the Hanover. In his preface to a show of art critics' painting at the Tea Centre, Regent-street, Mr. Eric Newton remarks iustlv that through such pro ductions we polish up the tools of our trade." Together with his critical insight, which may be deepened by first-hand experience of the art- iM's problems, the critic must, however, possess also an understanding of art history which can only be deepened by such valuable specialist exhibitions as that oi Artists in 17th Century Rome," at Wilden- steins.

Its aim is to suggest some of the artistic currents in Rome between the 1590s and the 1660s, that period termed Baroque which witnessed all manner of developments out of the deadlock of late Mannerism. TT was to Papal Rome, world capital ot culture and enlightened patronage, that artists came from all over Europe at this time to form a cosmopolitan Scuola Romana. At Wildenstein's, the Nude Youth with a Ram of Caravaggio reminds us of his marvellous aptitude for humanising Michelangelo, his inventiveness, and pervasive influence; while in a transitional work like "The Coronation of the Virgin," Annibale Carracci's attempt to reconcile a monumental severity and symmetry with the naturalism of his flanking figures, offers a pointer to the direction of this Bolognese master. Something of Bernini's versatility is indicated in three of his rare oils; and (he presence of foreign genius in Rome celebrated in works by Claude 1 and Poussin, Rubens and Van Dyck whose portraits of the Shirleys reflect 1 that Venetian luxury which was to captivate Delacroix. These are the high-lights of an anthology which naturally contains its quota of hybrid curiosities, such as Paulus Bor's Enchantress hunched disconsolately beside a fantastic candelabrum and fingering a sort of riding-switch.

Every epoch has. so to say, its prize Bors. and the Roman Seicento was rich in them. Indeed it is through the capital's most curious and receptive visitors, notably the Dutch painters, that we gain a better understanding both of the life and range of artistic expres-l sion in this spiritual forcing-house. By PAUL FERRIS funny and genuinely original.

Donald Wolfit played the Bailiff with great relish. Mdnstre Gai took us inside the City Third City and at once the falling off was evident. Instead of the sweeping effects of the first part, there was a stringing together of small scenes, some of them practically meaningless, to establish Pullman and Satters in what is described as an outpost of Heaven." There are assaults by the Devil, a misogynist Governor, a greatly diminished Bailiff. The cruelty and wit of The Childermass have become a parade of minor cruelties and witticisms. Malign Fiesta is set ill Meta-polis, which is Hell.

There was as nasty a sequence of medieval torture scenes as you could hope to find, familiar Fascist echoes in the Devil's speeches and final destruction for Pullman at the hand of an avenging God. Throughout there was a feeling of poinilessness, of whizzbang writing for the sake of a very muffled whizz-bang. Instead of the close-packed language of the first part, there was a wordiness, a verbal running to seed. The three programmes were vigorously produced by D. G.

Bridson with impressive use of effects and music. But, at least as radio, parts II and III seemed a very imperfect consequence of The Childermass." HAYMARKET. Whi 9832. 7.30. W.

S. 2.30 Ruth Gordon. Eileen Hcrlie, Sam Levcne. The Mali aaa it I r. Thornton Wilder.

Lai Was HER MAJESTY'S. Wbl 6606. Eyas. 7.30 sharp Wed. 2.30.

Sat. 5.30 Sl 8.30. THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON. Best we've seen for axes." Sunday Chronicle. HIPPODROME.

Ger 3272. Eyes. 7.45. Sat. 6 8.30.

THE DESPERATE HOURS. The Most Baciuna Experience." CD. Tel.) LYRIC (Ger 3686). Evs. 7.30.

Sat. 6 8.40. Th. 2.30. Ronald Shiner.

Nisei Slock, George Rose in My Tarn A axels. Comedy. LYRIC, H'amltb. Rly 4432. Evas.

7.30. Thar. St Sat. 2.30. Dorothy TUtin In THE LARK NEW.

Tern 387B. 7J0. Sat. 5.30. 8.30.

Tue. 2 30. NixeJ Patrick. Elizabeth Sedan. Hush Wakefield In RsssaxkaMe Mr.

Peaaypackay. "A winner Galea oi lauxhlcr." NewsWkl, NEW WATERGATE. TRA 6233. (ex. Rome HAPPY RETURNS.

Menu. SI- yr. OLD VIC. Wat 7616. 7.15.

Sat. 2.30. Mon. (loots A last Deri Macbeth. last perf.

of As Yoa Uke IL Wed. Henry IV, Psn Two. Henry IV, Part One. OPEN AIR, Rerent'a Park. Htm 0925.

THE TEMPEST. Evas. 7 30. Mats. W.

Th. S. 2.30 PALACE. 8. W.

2.30. S. 3.30. 8.43. Ian Kie-mira, Mann Efxertb.

Tat Many Widow. Com. lunc 27 Compaaaoas da la Chanson. PALLADIUM. Oer 7373.

Bvas. 6.13 and 8.45. DANNY KAYE, Wences. The Dunlvilla, etc. PHOENIX (Tern 8611).

Eras 7 JO. Matt- Wa. St. 2.30. Rex Harrison, UiU Palmer.

BELL. BOOK AND CANDLE, by John van Dnuen with Athene Seyter Esmond Knisht. PICCADILLY (Get 45061. Wed Fri. 7.45.

Thorn A Sat. 3.30 A 8.30. THE JAZZ TRAIN. All Nearo Musical. PRINCE OF WALES.

Whi 8681. 6.15 A B.M. BENNY HILL in New and ExcMnx Folio Bergere PARIS BY NIGHT. Tommy Cooper PRINCES. Tem 6596.

Ev. 7.45, S. 5J0 A 8.30 Mats. Th. 2.30 Pat Kirtwood.

WONDERFUL TOWN. Shani Wallis. Sidney lames. ROYAL COURT. Slo 1745.

Evts. 8. Sat. 5. 8.

Tnurs 2.30 Roser Livesey. Urania Jeans. UNCERTAIN JOY. by Charlotte Hastinas. ST.

JAMES'S WW 3W5). Eyas. 7.30. Sst 2.30. Eric Portman.

Manaret Leixhton Separate TsMea by Terence Rattixan. ST. MARTIN'S. Era. 7.30.

Sat. 2.30. RUTH DRAPER. Season until Inly 2nd. SAVOY.

7.45. Sst. 5.30. 8.30. Wed.

2.45 Msrxarct LOCK WOOD with Felix Aylmcr in Axstha ChTHtte's SPIDER'S WEB. STOU. Ho) 3703. MF 7.30. S.

5.15. 8.30. 2.30. ALFRED DRAKE in aUSMET wuh Dorcttn Morrow. Joan Dieoer.

STRAND (Tem 2660). 7 30. S. 5.15. 8.30.

Th. 2 30 Pcxxy Mount. All BEWARE. "A million shattenna lauahs." Daily Mirror. VAUDEVILLE.

Eyxs 8 Sata. SAB. Mat. Thurs 2.30 A MUSICAL SALAD DAYS. VICTORIA PALACE.

Vic 1317. 6.13. 8.45. THE CRAZY GANG. Nerro A Knox, Bud Flanaaan.

Nanxmos A Gold. Jokers wild. WHITEHALL. 7.30. Th.

2.30. Sat. S.1J. 8.15 John Slater. Brian Rfs.

Basil Lord. Dry Rot. WINDMILL, Pice Ore. REVXJDEVTLLE. 24ih yr 274th Ed.

(1st week) Coot. dly. 12 15-10 3 5. Last perf 9 A Vsn Da nun Production. WE NEVER CLOSED." Want to start something Like many another contractor he is fed up with all the waste of time caused by diesel engines that won't start immediately they are needed.

If he only realised tharMvor contractor's, oilfield and airfield plant, and industrial and marine engines, the only sure way of starting in all conditions is the Berger handraulic starter, he'd write for particulars like a shot. Berger needs no outside power, no batteries, bottles or cartridges. It is flameproof. Operates in blistering heat or freezing cold. Can be fined to most new and existing engines up to a cylinder bore of Approved and fitted by; Dorman, Leyland, National, Perkins, Petter-McLaren, Rolls Royce, Ruston and Hornsby, Thomycroft, etc.

BERGER HANDRAULIC STARTER stops starting troubles Writ! for full porticuian anrcE berger ltd stainej Middlesex TELEPHONE STAINSS 1050 igmt Saving SAVINGS ACCOUNTS ON DEPOSIT for regular amounts from 10- to 10 monthly PAID-UP SHARES for any amount from CI to 5000 Reserves: 1,650,000 COLNAGHI GALLERIES. 14. Old Bond St l. PAINTINGS BY OLD MASTERS Daily 10 a.m.-5J0 p.m. Sata.

10-1 DELIA MASSEY. An exhibition of oils and rater colours. CooUnx Galleries. Bond lune 6-m 00 a.m. to 5 10 p.m COO MRS A rKJcCrV AL GALLERY, 43.

Albemarle tr tar .1 Water Colours bvDennii HxriKeV. ui i-ajiiiHB TTTl tls, 50. South Moltoctatreex. Its i a. -fa- COROT to PICASSO.

"-TIJRS CHOICE from 'HOTatgrnScxy, andtbe Mediterranean. UnUi 26th 4.30. Stn i tjaviet A ninx Leiilltoii MARLBORO 'tRFVVOl. tvtiaiauu, V'lflilrl ua.14, venor Square. French Im New work mnoBrapi a- A-J 1 i-oodon oLberi ROLAND, Cork St El .17.

A lion, -call SLATTES Mast cm. HAROLD TATP TOOTH'S 1 ANTgHl 5 Wfc 2-6. Free' "-HM. 31. Sruton PAINTTNr.

lit A H.M. Kins XaCeSlacT Ptrl TRAFFORD 10-1. In aki of Ian 9 IK fTr.LUK7f 0. rT liaa I WatcrccJomx. of EdUtf EoBlmh ALLZsir.

40-i: w' newssataxTroxaiSaiu pifMSa7 one w.i. 10gJgFtoih CLAVff V- 5 Income Tax on all Interest is paid by the Society CERTAINLY this year's Ring at Covent Garden is well calculated to refute those who regard it as a thinly disguised emotional orgy, in which the orchestra thunders away incessantly while singers yell their heads off in a vain attempt to lop the tumult that separates them from their audience. Rudolf Kempc's approach is basically restrained. His elastic tempi never lose the music'B underlying pulse, so that he is able to point every dramatic inflection without depriving the score of its majestic symphonic flow. And precisely because each act is felt as a unity its climaxes do not arrive like some sudden squall (always the sign of a bad Wagner conductor) but as a profound stirring -and tensing in the drama itself.

For the same reason, in the more reflective passages Kempe is able to relax the tension until time itself seems to stand still, and yet enable the drama to breathe like a huge body at rest. All these are, it seems to me, marks of a considerable Wagnerian conductor. If Kempe's reading has faults, they lie in an occasional lack of rhythmic bite and a tendency to emphasise what is lyrical and intimate in the music at the expense of its heroic aspect. Dawn can rarely have come in Die with more exquisite, tenderness, but at the entry of Siegfried and Brunnhilde the music did not blaze out with the full ecstasv of their brief happiness. This failure to rise in sheer volume of sound to a few great moments was.

however, the only disadvantage of the thin gauze that covered the back half of the orchestral pit. Certainly it in no way masked the wonderful blend of clarity and warmth that distinguished the playing; and it enabled the singers, freed for once from the struggle to make themselves heard, to produce a beauty of tone and expressive subtlety all too rare in performances of "The Ring." Hans Hotter's Wotan is in every detail a superb and memorable performance; and Maria von Ilosvay is a distinguished Fricka far removed from the nagging harpy we so often encounter. As Brunnhilde, Margaret Harshaw has gained in confidence and maturity, and although her lower register is pale, further up the voice is powerful and brilliant. 1 suppose that even if Set Svanholm's Siegfried is all bark and no legato and his stage behaviour hideously vulgar, it can be said to have at any rate a certain professional assurance. But heaven knows what possessed Covent Garden to engage Ludwig Hofmann as Hagen, as he was manifestlv at sea in the role.

But then don't imagine that many other opera houses have invited him to sing this testing part in the last decade. WVEN in Handel's later years London showed little taste for the rigid conventions of opera stria, so it is not surprising that we should find them hard to accept to-day. None the less the effort is worth making, for when one of his fifty operas is revived, as was DeMamia on Friday by the newly formed Handel Opera Society, the ear is struck afresh by the prodigious musical riches that lie buried there. But the trouble is that not only do most of these works demand immensely skilled productions, but also vocal standards' that too few singers attain to-day. And even when they do they lack the qualities of castrati, those lamented victims of a fuddle-headed humanitarian ism.

WYNDHAM'S. Tem 3028. Evaa. 8.30. Sat.

5.30. 8.30. Wed. 2.30. THE BOY FRIEND.

SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE. The 96th Season of Plays by William Shakespeare. Evening at 7 JO. Matinees Thursdays and Saturdays at 2J0. 26 to 146.

Tickets from Lxmdon Axcnla or Box Office. ROYAL TOURNAMENT, EARLS COURT. 2.30. 7.3D. FUL CINEMAS ACADEMY (Ger 2981).

I HAVE A NEW MASTER (V). PICASSO ft)). Pas. 5.0. 7.30.

BERKELEY. W.l. MUS 8150? DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (U1. PEPE LE MOKO (A) BROMLEY PULLMAN. De Stca's masterpiece UMBERTO (A).

Pross comm. 4.35, 7.IS. CAMEO-Poty. LAN 1744. Trevor Howard.

Francoiae Arnoal. Daniel GeUn. LOVERS OF LISBON (A). 4J0. 7.1S.

CARLTON. A CrnemaScope Picture. Tyrone Power. Susan Hay-ward. Richard Exan in UNTAMED (A)VCol.

PriJ. l-dy. 4.30. 7.21. CASINO.

Ger 6877. Clan i nana OJ). 4.45. 7.30. Wlcdyl.

"3 Pern. 2J0. 6.0 A 8.40. Bookable. CDSEPHONB (opp, SeHrldaesX.

MAY 4721. Manlnc Carol. The Beach on. (adulta only) ReacsesTOssi Da Jataet (A). Daniel.

Cell n. CONTINENT ALE, W.l. MUS 41; Marti ne CaroL Lsnsa Barsta (A). OReta (X). ruRZON.

Gto 3737. La Ran aa Carps Adults ontr; Two complete proas. 4.40, 7.10. EMPIRE, Ger 1234. Tonlay J.5 A 7J0.

Richard Todd. Mkhad Rcdxravr in THE vra" MAN. JS'Siay: The four Mara Brothers in PUCK SOUP U). Mon: Burress Meredith in WINTERSET AI. FORUM, Famanl Road.

KEN $234. To-day G. Fhilipe. Gisa Lollobrixida. FAN FAN LA TUUPE (A) (French) Plus losianc MARIE LOUISE (U1 Swiss.

GAUMONT. HantL 3 A flail the Hoaac (A), Catesxo dimMtm (A3. Proas. 4.30. 6.25.

LONDON PAV. To-day from 4.30 (Doors 4). IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (A) MARBLE ARCH PAVILION. AGE OF INDISCRETION OO. Protrammea 4.30.

7.5. ODEON. MARTY (U) with Ernest Borsnine. Bear Blab-. 5.30.

8.30. Doors 4. ODEON. Mr Arch. Scope.

2.t Leasaea Uaacr daa Saa Tech. Proas- 4J0. 7.20. RIALTO. A CINEMASCOPE Picture.

Victor Mature. R. Eaaa A S. McNaily in Violent Satayday (A). Colour.

Proa, today 4.10. 7. RITZ. Ger 1234. T-dy.

3.20, 8.0. Gene Kelly, Van Johnson. Cyd Chariase in Brlaailima rU). anemaScope. Col.

Perapecta Sound. STUDIO ONE. Disney's THE VANISHING PRAIRIE TJ) at 4.30. 6.40. 8:50.

Also SI AM (U). Dim. 4 p.m. Last pros 7.50. WARNER.

Ger. 3423. The SBrer Chalice fin. ClnemsScopc. Warnercolor.

To-day 4.30. 7.13. Wkdn 10.0. 12.35. 3.0.

3.40 8.20 LECTURES GRESHAM COLLEGE, Bnxlnxhall Sweet London. E.C-2. Four Lecturea br Preb. Martyn Sanders. M.A.

(Qresham Professor in Divinity) on "THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS on Mon. to June 6-. Lectures are FREE and beam at 5.30 P-m. For full details write to the VESTBOUnrJE PARK BUILDING SOCIETY West bourne Grove; London, W.2 Whatever the pleasure Player's complete it ITS THE TOBACCO THAT COUNTS ADMIRALTY ANNOL'SC EMES'T Wyndham Lewis's novel, The Childermass," was published in 1928 it was said to be the first of a trilogy. After being broadcast in a successful adaptation a few years ago, the B.B.C.

commissioned the author to complete the trilogy, the radio version to be heard before publication of the book. This he has done, under the general title of The Human Age, and all three parts have just been broadcast. The idea behind the commission is exemplary and impressive, but the broadcasts were horribly disappointing. The Childermass makes a fine script and one can see that as a fragment of an incomplete work it roused the imagination. But it looks as though it was one of those fragments that were not meant to be enlarged upon.

Pullman and Satters are among the dead awaiting admission to a walled city. What they hear and see particularly of the Bailiff, a grotesque dictator-buffoon, who is screening everyone for entry into, presumably, Heaven is the whole substance of The Childermass." The effect is to show a shadowy humanity cowering under the giant figure of the humorously evil Bailiff, who dispenses aphorisms and monologues over their bead. It's very cruel. OPERA, BALLET COVENT GARDEN. SADLER'S WELLS BALLET.

Last 3 wka. of season. 7.30, La Lac ana Cyaaa. with Fomeyn. Somes.

7.30, Lea Syteaidae, Lad tea Fool, Umiak Sal. 2.30. SltaMdr. Ladj tat Pool, Miami Carytaataoa. 7.30.

La Lac aaa Cna, Co 1066. COVENT GARDEN OPERA. Tue- 7.0. last gxf. of Maillaaa of Flaaro, with Ocas.

G. ana. Morton. Pollak. Waliera.

Prltchard. 7.0, Daa Ractaaold. 6.0. Dia Waatara. Tfca Rlmx' June 8, 10.

14, seaia for atatle peril, from 35a-June 17 aeata from 40a. SADLER'S WELLS. Ter 1672. Bus. 7.

Mat. Maaae rrara. uv. raaa of aOnfa. Th i CARL ROSA OPERA.

Week commeoclnz Theatre Royal. Newcaatle-on-Tyne. GIYNDESOUIINE FESTIVAL OPERA. June to 26 July. Emrraency coaches from Victoria Dean A Dawson Wcl 0092 Wed and Fri Flxaro.

boih at 5 10 Sat-Coasts Orjr. at 6.00 12 June (Sunday Club) Flaaro, at 4.45 Seats mil available from Glyndebourne Opera Bos Office. Lewes Susses (Rtnxmer 80), or 23 Baker W.I (WEL 0372) or aecnta THEATRES, 'J" 8 50 I'romy Edwards. Si5Einf- THE TALK Of THE i Lahter Reroc. ALDWYCH, TEM 6404.

En 7 JO 2 30. Diana Wynrard. Manrk Gillmore. Malcolm Keen THE BAD SEED mSSL-P "IT" 230 Sat by Christie A'OLLO (Oct 2663). Eas- 7.30.

Mats. k30 "JSif1 wler Fiuaerald: Diane Cilento In TIGER AT THE GATES byGirsudous. translated by Fry An TUd' 5 0 A cVJf2? rp w5f" TW Rrtwrtaat Debotaate. a luhS mukut oy LtKiuHTiM Home COUSetM (Tern 3llT. -F 7.30 W.

1 30 CRIJEWON. Wbl 3216. 30 Th. Sat ORYrV-S-fSTH K. posers A Hagnneiaiein'a Tat KJaot aad "VjfeS- Tern 1243.

Eras 7.45t. 5 JO" Vf. I week. En 5' 50 Dawid TOR Mary. iKSSP HEARNE (Mr BF? rr Frif, Guest St.r World Premiere June 16 Ful 1212.

5," Lost Giaiisllaw. 7 45 Wed 2 30 Sat A GLOBE. Get 15W2. Er. 7 30 2-30 Ensryn William, a.

Dykaa Taoa' GrowtaTlJil ROYAL NAVAL SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME ARRANGEMENTS FOR THIRD COMPETITION The Board of Admiralty announces the third competition for the award of a limited number of scholarships to suitable candidates aged about 16 who wish to enter the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, at age 18. Assets: 24,600,000 "OYAt FESTIVAL HALL. WATerloo 3191 TO-DAY 3 p.m. JUNE LONDON STRING QUARTET Serins Qoanet in flat (The Hum). StrtnsT Qaintet in C.

Op. 16) Schubert Piano Quintet in minor. Op. 34 MOISEIWFISCH, Piano JOHN SHINEBOURNE, 'Cello TicteLi 76. 5-.

36. ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL TO-NIGHT 7.30 p.m. Sib JUNE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Tragic Overture Brahms Violin Concerto in Tchaikovsky Symphonic Poem. Gabble Reichit 16m pert.) Leonard Saliedo Emsma Variations Elear YFRAH NEAMAN SDR. ADRIAN BOULT 126.

S1-. 116, a6. WAT 3191. ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL TO-NIGHT. SUNDAY.

7 45 p.m. "ln the Recital Room the American Pianist EDITH STEARNS and srmlttve musician iVew York Herald Tribune Bach-Watton. Soler. Scarlatti. Schumann.

Brahma, sWOowcll. Viratl Thomson. Shapero. Gttffes. Piston.

Creston. 9-. 61: it-, from Hall (WAT 3191) Aaents Man bc men! A A Concerts. 86. George Street.

1 ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL TUESDAY 8 p.m. 7 JUNE S. A. GORLINSKY announces EILEEN JOYCE BEETHOVEN PROGRAMME Ovei title, Leonora No. 3 Piano Concerto No.

4 in CI iso. in flat rEroica) iRMONIA ORCHESTRA ir-BAn vi.UN Tit: 6. SI-. 76. 10-.

126 frOxstHnil (WAT 3191) A axents. ART GALLERIES, ROYAL ACADEMY -SUMMER EXHIBITION To-day 2-6. Admission 2s. ARCHER GALLERY. 303.

Westbourne Grove. W.ll. SCULPTURE and PAINTINGS bi NA1IIA ROY. TILL IITNE 11th. Tues.

-Sat 1 0-5. Sunday 2-5. Closed Monday. Gl ACOMETn. An Exhibition of Sculpture.

PaJntJmja Drawinas. ARTS COUNCIL GALUSlY. 4 SL lames Square. S.W 1. Onen US 9 July.

Moot- 4 Tntmi- '-8- Admission Free BarUUnrCAtXEssTES, 20, Davits St Mi- 10-6: Sat. 10-1. pPOLrfffifefe W1 Incx holders at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. HONORARY SCHOLARSHIPS Candidates who are ineligible for financial awards may be offered honorary scholarships which will entitle them to places at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. ROYAL MARINES Candidates may also apply for scholarships with a view to entry to the Officars' School Royal Marines, Lympstone, Devon.

APPLICATIONS Full details of the scheme and forms of application may be obtained from the Secretary of the Admiralty, N.C.W. (Scholarships Dept. OB 601), Queen Anne's Mansions, London, S.W.I. SELECTION PROCEDURE The awards wOl be made in January, 1936, to boys bom on or between 2nd September. 193J, and 1st January, 1940.

The closing date for applications is 1st July. 1955. Candidates will he called before a Preliminary Selection Board in September, 1455. Those who are successful at the Preliminary Selection Board will later be called before a Final Selection Board. There will be no formal written examination.

PAYMENT OF GRANTS Candidates who are awarded scholarships will remain Tit their on schools for two years; during these years grants towards the cost of their maintenance and tuition will be paid to their parents or guardians Places will be reserved for all scholarship I Ave.r,6HN CBU. IfetxTMriul.