Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Friday 29 October 1948, page 1


"Rusty Bugles" Sound

New Lily-white Tune

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"Rusty Bugles," polite ver-sion, was presented at the In-dependent Theatre last night.

Two representatives of the Chief Secretary—the chief clerk of the Chief Secretary's Department, Mr. F. R. Lake, and Inspector F. Nunan— were present in the audience to see that the actors minded

their p's and q's (and their

b's).

Critical opinion is that "Rusty Bugles," as bowdler-ised, is still a very able show, although the last-minute revi-sions of the script slowed the pace of the acting and steeply reduced the original play's crackling vitality.

It will not be known until to-day whether the Chief Sec-retary, Mr. J. M. Baddeley, is satisfied with the revised script which is a lily-white echo of last week's performances. There is so much water in the new performance that an audi-ence, only rarely, could taste the original jungle juice.

An occasional harsh word has been retained in order to prove that the lovable soldier characters in this play are not

really dandies at a garden-

party. On the whole, the revi- sion has been done "not too

baddeley," as one punster put it."

The Minister for Housing, Mr. Clive Evatt, was in the audience and said at the inter-val that he wanted to con-

gratulate the playwright, Sum-

ner Locke-Elliott, on the vigour

of his writing and characters.

—L.B. ________