An Hour and A-Half of Hearty Laughter

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7278, 4 October 1933, Page 5

An Hour and A-Half of Hearty Laughter

•‘THEIR NIGHT OUT” A BRIGHT BRITISH FARCE IS SCHEDULED

"Their Night Out,” at the Palace on Saturday, will be good. It is joyous, devil-may-care, and entirely absurd. Its laughter will tickle the stoutest soherside; shake the midriff of any despair. It rolls fans in their seats and shakes and takes away dignity.

The story concerns a young business man who lightly "cuts” a dinner engagement with his "in-laws” and takes a woman buyer to a night club. There he is robbed by a ravishing “danseuse,” is wrapped round by misadventures and by the same "danseuse,” and arrives home ini the early hours to a misunderstanding family. Mis excuse leads him to the police court, to more misunderstanding, and to diatribes from an irate mother-in-law, to admiration from a gang of thieves, and to all sorts of things.

But the story’s chief purpose is to make the absurdity plausible, and it does that splendidly; but it is the players who exhilarate the audience, having been infected themselves by the situations.

Claude Hulbcrt is the "absent” business man with the surprised, vacant face, bereft of brains, but with explanatory hands and dancing, acrobatic feet. He becomes exuberantly stupid in his debauches, and does things with his feet. He acquires an umbrella and has an episode with a lamp-post at ‘1 o’clock in the morning. His eyebrows should bo made a national legacy,, like Ralph Lynn’s monocle and teeth. His postures aro remarkable; he splays. And he is ably supported by Jimmy Godden.

Rcnco Houston begins as a pure young woman from Aberdeen, but ends by becoming a night club queen. She has a militant umbrella and indignant eyebrows, and a delicious accent. She visits a night club and orders milk, and wears a "party” dress.

There is a facetious but sympathetic father-in-law to our bemused business man, and a critical mother-in-law, and a beautiful wife, and a flat-footed butler, and a vamp, and a gang of crooks, and marital difficulties, and all sorts of things, and good laughter. The production is very good; the teamwork of the players is really excellent. Clara Bow says that She felt so sorry for the snake she had to battle with in "Call Her Savage,” that she decided to keep it as a pet,