ful, uproarious and plausible farce, almost too
successful in that you can't hear one-third of the jokes because of the
laughter at the other two-thirds (and a little because of the indistinct
articulation of one or two of the players). Of course when I say
"plausible" I don't exactly mean that any Brigade Headquarters was run
on the sketchy lines of _General Archibald Root's_, or that the gallant
author or anybody else who was in the beastly thing ever thought of the
Great War as a devastating joke, but rather that if it be true, as has
been rumoured, that not all generals were miracles of wisdom and
forbearance; that British subalterns and privates sometimes put on the
mask of humour; that _Venus_ did wander, as the observatories punctually
reported she did occasionally wander, into the orbit of _Mars_--then
_French Leave_ is a piece of artistically justifiable selection. Its
absurdity seems the most natural thing in the world and its machinery
(rare virtue!) does not creak.

_Rooty Tooty's_ brigade then was resting--if in the circumstances you
can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due,
his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being
cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters
was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet
landlady's, a _Mdlle. Juliette_, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly
coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly
consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by
reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the
old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and
counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the
Brigade Interpreter with Intelligence's reports; sorrowful conviction in
the Brigadier's mind that _Juliette_ is _Olga--Olga Thingummy_, the
famous German spy. Confusions; explosions; solutions.

That's a dull account of a bright matter. The players were not, with the
exception of Miss Renee Kelly, of the star class and (I don't
necessarily say therefore) were almost uniformly admirable. I suppose
the honours must go to Mr. M.R. Morand's excellently studied
_Brigadier_--the most laughter-compelling performance I have seen on the
"legitimate" for some years. But the _Mess Corporal_ (Mr. Charles
Groves), the _Staff-Captain_ (Mr. Henry Kendall), the _Brigade-Major_
(Mr. Hylton Allen), the _Interpreter_ (Mr. George