e scheme to
be "all Tommy rot." With the exception of one character--the devoted
slave--the lightness of the dialogue, mildly cynical, was due not so much
to its wit as to the absence of ponderable stuff. The easy trick, so
popular with the modern playwright, of letting the audience down in the
middle of a serious situation was illustrated by the hero when, being in
deadly earnest, he tells every woman in turn that she is the only woman he
has ever loved.

As _Mr. Todd_, Mr. HOLMAN CLARK was as fresh as he always is; but Mr. OWEN
NARES could hardly hope to satisfy the exigent demands of adoration in the
part of young _Carrington_. Who, indeed, could sustain his reputation as a
figure of romance when addressed as "Arthur-John"? Mr. FRED KERR, who
played _Martin Carrington_, the cantankerous uncle, cannot help being
workmanlike; but he was asked to repeat himself too much. The best
performance was that of Miss MARION LORNE, in the part of the hero's one
devout lover, _Fancy Phipps_; her quiet sense of humour, salted with a
slight American tang, kept the whole play together.

O.S.

"TEA FOR THREE."

Playwright Mr. ROI COOPER-MEGRUE, and principal players Miss FAY COMPTON,
the wife; Mr. STANLEY LOGAN, the friend, and Mr. A.E. MATTHEWS, the
husband, made a first-rate thing of two-thirds of _Tea for Three_.

The wife is without blemish physically or morally. The husband is faithful
with a single-minded fidelity in thought, word and deed that looks (and, I
am assured by equally innocent victims, is) positively deadly. The friend
"frits and flutters" about in a distinctly casual, not to say polygamous,
mood, but has one sacred place in his untidy heart in which the wife is
enshrined. He can manage to sustain life so long as he may come to
triangular tea on Thursdays. But the faithful husband puts his foot on
that.

Hence the stolen lunch for two with which the play opens. Philosophy there
is, and very good philosophy too, from the flutterer and fritter, and such
love-making as every virtuous woman (at heart a minx) allows. She is sorry,
doubtless, for the suffering she causes, but (this is my gloss, not, I
think, the author's) is really enjoying it like anything and taking jolly
good care to look her best. Then follow little lies and as little and as
needless and quite innocent indiscretions; and the jealous husband on the
rampage.

All this excellently put together, seasoned with wisdom and wit and most
capably played