THE DRAMATIC WORLD .sx By JAMES AGATE .sx Adelphi .sx Wednesday , December 3 .sx " EVER GREEN .sx " A Musical Show .sx Book by Benn W. Levy , Lyrics by Lorenz Hart , Music by Richard Rodgers .sx To pretend that this lovely thing is a musical comedy is to evade truth , since Mr. Cochran's latest sophistication takes after its inept model about as little or as much as Man resembles his first progenitor .sx There is every indication that our artist-showman set to work in good faith even to the extent of asking Mr. Benn Levy to produce the most strenuously inane idea which could be conceived as emanating from the human cranium .sx Mr. Levy also began loyally enough .sx He conceived the notion of Miss Jessie Matthews failing to enchant us a revue-star of twenty-three but winning to fame by pretending to be sixty .sx Add a young man sempiternally enamoured of , but at cross-purposes with , the wintry lady , and the blissful farrago was complete .sx Heaven knows from what limbo Mr. Levy lured this lunacy !sx Possibly from Sir Arthur Pinero's slightly modified :sx - " There can be no valid objection to a girl becoming an old woman at any moment she , with the sympathetic assistance of nature , selects .sx " However , there the theme was in all its vacancy .sx The only thing left was to protract witlessness to the length of a musical-comedy book , and hire a few lyrics and as much sounding brass and tinkling cymbal as modern jazz demands .sx This was done .sx " Calloo !sx " chortled the organiser of these revels .sx " Callay !sx " chortled back his bench-man .sx The Albert Hall echoed them frabjously .sx Colour , and Again Colour .sx Then the two devils of Mr. Cochran's artistry and Mr. Levy's wit got together to suggest that a revolving-stage would be none the worse for a few ideas to revolve along with it .sx I take it that it was Mr. Levy's notion to begin with a beauty-competition in the Albert Hall , whereby the proceedings started with an aldermanic oration which might have been the very thing itself .sx " Under this roof , " boomed the chairman in Paddington's choicest frock-coat and accents , " which has seen so many contests won on fouls more glorious than any in history .sx .. " From that moment we knew that the imbecile game was up , and that both Mr. Cochran and Mr. Levy , adding to themselves the musicianly Mr. Rodgers , intended to give us what they liked instead of pandering to received taste which is the one royal road to failure .sx I shall attempt no further allotment of responsibility .sx Somebody had the exquisite inspiration of engaging for the star's mother , masquerading as daughter , not one of your rough-and-tumble " ugly sister " viragoes but that impeccable artist , Miss Jean Cadell .sx Somebody had the entirely right notion that to keep this part " straight " would throw other absurdity into greater relief .sx Miss Cadell held her course throughout the piece with the nicest sense of how much depended upon her .sx To a succession of incidents which might have staggered Cleopatra she presented a front of withered circumspection which knew not amazement and leaped to allowances .sx Asked point-blank by a devotee of Eros in a blue pea-jacket whether she had ever been in love , Miss Cadell put her head on one side and chirped :sx " Yes .sx But quite nicely , of course !sx " This artist's " opposite number " was Mr. Leon Morton , and between them the pair ran away with the piece , or would have done if the scenery and dresses had not nailed it to that steadfast if revolving stage .sx Mr. Cochran , to continue the theory of undiluted responsibility , obviously saw his theme with that inward eye which is the bliss of multitude .sx Calling together Professor Ernst Stern and Mesdames Peacock , Calthrop , and Zinkeisen , he determined to treat Miss Matthews to a tour of music-halldom as the latest French painters might " see " it .sx Thus we had in " A Rehearsal at the Casino des Folies , " a canvas of perfect enchantment , which in " The Interior of a Tent at Neuilly Fair " gave place to an illustration from " Les Frres Zemganno .sx " After this came " Neuilly Fair " itself , infinite riches in obviously little room , a twirling feat of kaleidoscopic jugglery .sx Next the scene entitled " The New Master , " in which a roysterer looking for the Maison Tellier found himself at a seminary for English young ladies .sx I object to this scene because parents may rightly object to it , because it is insufficiently funny , and because it is taken without acknowledgment from a tiny story by Maupassant .sx I invite Mr. Cochran to substitute something else before the Christmas Holidays .sx The Finale of the first part , " La Synthse de la Belle de Soixante Ans , " perfectly reproduced the thistledown sumptuosities of the Folies-Bergre , and , indeed , the whole show brilliantly captured the note and spirit of Paris .sx One felt that one would sup not in the Strand , but in the Place Blanche .sx It would be tedious to continue in this cataloguing , and I shall prefer to recall that it was in the second half that Miss Cadell , encountering Mr. Morton who had been robbed of his trousers , placidly announced her decision to march with the times !sx A New Comedian .sx It must not be supposed that this show is nothing but colour .sx The time comes when Mr. Cochran , deeming us sated with satins tulip-green and silks angrier than heart of volcano , desists with a sigh , and for a bit there is plain sailing .sx This is where Mr. Albert Burdon comes in .sx Mr. Burdon is a young comedian who , having set Tyne , Tees , and Trent on fire , now succeeds with Thames .sx He is nearly funnier than most of the established zanies , and he brings to his work the peculiar properties of Lancashire gusto and Yorkshire relish .sx Then there is Mr. Sonnie Hale , warming to the almost credible .sx Miss Matthews , when she is not dancing exquisitely , shows how much of variety may enliven the seeming infantile , and once , for a passionate moment , rises above curds and whey .sx The acrobatics of Chica , supported in every sense of the word by the three Messrs .sx Carlos , demonstrate the superficiality of our notions concerning gravity , and the Tiller Girls reproduce their miracle of perfect alignment .sx Juno , to use a vulgarism , had little on those lilies of the field ?sx yelept? Mr. Cochran's Young Ladies , Miss Joyce Barbour hovers gracefully upon the fringe of the programme , and Miss Jean Barry and Mr. Dave Fitzgibbon complete an entertainment so all-absorbing that I have no notion of what the new theatre looks like .sx I take it that for a whole year the London public will flock to Mr. Cochran's ever green pastures .sx Savoy .sx Friday , December 5 .sx " WONDER BAR .sx " A Musical Play .sx By Geza Herczeg and Karl Farkas .sx English book by Rowland Leigh , Music by Robert Katscher .sx This gay , deftly organised , and unusual entertainment should be judged entirely on its own merits .sx It has nothing of the smooth-flowing beauty of " Ever Green , " just as Mr. Cochran's show has none of M. Charlot's staccato incitement to first this little phase of interest and then that .sx Probably everybody knows by this time how at the Savoy Theatre stall-floor is added to stage to give the impression of a night club in a city which would appear to be somewhere East of Vienna .sx It took a little time for audience and actors to establish contact ; the absence of the curtain seemed on the whole to diminish intimacy .sx But perhaps the first-act material did not greatly avail to get everybody going .sx Too many little ladies sang who should have been content to dance .sx And then there was the plot .sx This concerned a gigolo who stole an emerald necklace and then made his victim his dancing partner .sx Not much here to bring about all that laceration wherewith musical comedy heroines are wont to bring down the threnodic , half-way curtain .sx Perhaps , as there was no curtain , it was held that tameness might suffice .sx At this point the play seemed heading for only mediocre success , since even Mr. Brisson , though his station was that of the herald Mercury , had not fired the house .sx It is convenient , perhaps , to say here that this actor may safely challenge comparison with any known enchanter .sx Mr. Chevalier has a charm the like of which , we are told , is not to be found again within the confines of the solar system .sx Good !sx But Mr. Brisson , take him for all in all , from his cherubic pate to his god-like fists and twinkling feet , has not his peer this side Orion .sx Also good !sx He , too , has modesty , and with it a faculty of ingratiation second to none .sx " But for vacancy , " said Enobarbus , " the air had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too , and made a gap in nature .sx " But for vacancy at the Dominion every member of that audience must have besieged the Savoy , and vice versa .sx The second act , to which one must soberly return , for a time threw over the play in order to permit Miss Ether Baird to delight us with a burlesque dance , Miss Norah Blaney and Miss Gwen Farrar to make investigation into the ways of insects and bull-fighters , and Mr. Giovanni to conjure .sx Hereabouts Mr. Dick Francis , as one of the choicer and lusher spirits , was extremely amusing .sx Then , when we thought the play was over , it took a good-sized leaf out of " Bitter-Sweet .sx " Already Miss Dorothy Dickson had by her dancing set us wishing that she might ever do nothing but that ; now she showed us something of a gift for simple feeling unlooked for in this bright medley .sx The end of the play , then , found the audience holding a very different opinion from that it had held at half-time .sx Mr. Joseph Greenwald bound the show together with his admirable Jewish witticisms , and the production was as slick as slick could be .sx The music was unusually tuneful in places , and , in short , there cannot be any doubt about this play's success .sx It pleased every attitude of brow .sx Prince of Wales .sx Tuesday , December 2 .sx " THE QUEEN BEE .sx " A Comedy .sx Adapted from the French of Andre Paul Antoine by Jose G. Levy .sx How the Censor , while adhering to his ban upon Strindberg's " Frulein Julie , " should permit the second scene in the second act of this play is one of those things which it is impossible to understand .sx In my view the public is , in the long run , the best of all censors .sx But I cannot see why , if a ban is placed upon a serious work of art dealing with sex , it should not also be imposed upon the flippant exposition of that fretful question .sx The objectionable scene deals , to put it bluntly , with the pathological results of excess , and shows how the Queen Bee's lover , faced with the doctor's recommendation to displease his mistress and live , elects for the contrary .sx Though this scene may and should not revolt the adult , it is possible that young girls will regret having brought their mothers .sx The difficulty would be met , I think , by a halfway ban insisting upon adult audiences only , for I agree that it would be intolerable if concern for the schoolgirl should dictate what plays we may or may not see .sx The whole point of the play is to show how a certain type of woman sends three men to the churchyard , and the whole bite of the entertainment consists in the conversations of the trio emerging from their tombs .sx The piece has that peculiar tang which the French find in the association of ideas which other taste will keep apart-the rigours of passion and that other rigour of death .sx Miss Iris Hoey gives an extremely clever impersonation of the overwhelming lady , and if London were Paris I should have nothing to say in this witty play's disfavour .sx But London isn't Paris , and whether it should or should not be I am unable to determine !sx Comedy .sx Thursday , December 4 .sx " TWELVE HOURS .sx " A Comedy .sx By John Willard .sx Mr. John Willard successfully pursues what would appear to be a settled theory of thrillers .sx This theory , briefly , is to pile one horror upon another without any care for the bathos which attends overcrowding .sx Then at the moment when we are about to say :sx " This is nonsense !sx " he will trot out some wilful absurdity as retreat from the old and cover for the new assault .sx