OPERATIC SATIRE ON THIRD PROGRAMME

"EMILY BUTTER"

BY HENRY REED

Mr. Henry Reed's clever radio joke which began with A Very Great Man Indeed—the quest for a novelist—continued last night in Emily Butter, a recollection of the first night of Hilda Tablet's opera. As in the former programmes, the quarry was hounded with vigour, but even with the aid of Mr. Donald Swann, some singers, and a section of an orchestra to swell the pack Mr. Reed either did not succeed in catching his quarry or he deliberately refused to perform the kill. So often he made a puerile thrust where he could have made a penetrating one.

Herbert Reeve, the pompous scholar (Mr. Hugh Burden), again narrated the piece in his pedantically honeyed manner. By now we know the quirks of Mr. Reeve. It was in the opera itself and its radio commentary from Covent Garden—described by both commentators as "the beloved old opera house"—that Mr. Reed scored most heavily. We began to visualize very well not merely the department store in which Emily Butter, a work "aiming to enshrine women" was set, and the gestures of its composer-conductress, but also the very "ethos of pathos" it was said to arouse. The intrigue of the opera running to some nine acts including sequences shot in silent film and Cinerama was beautifully confused. Miss Rose Hill, who sang the shop-lifter, had the best aria in "I'm just looking round"; Mr. Scott Joynt boomed well as the massive policewoman; Miss Anna Pollak as an unhappy chief buyer and Miss Marjorie Westbury as the pathetic Emily Butter both came over with a fine mock seriousness. But the radio interviews, the reactions of the audience, and—most disappointing of all—the comments of the critics, were but feebly conceived. Mr. Reed has indeed let his subject off too lightly.

Emily Butter will be repeated on Wednesday