Cedric Messina’s
production of the play by George Bernard Shaw.
It is a
masterpiece, the production for television, there is a view quite unclear out
lawyer Sagamore’s window with sunlight streaming in that rests the eyes upon
its sense of London.
It is all like
that, the country inn swanked up, the smell of the sweatshop (Maggie Smith does
that by acting), a perfect pictorial rendition.
When Asquith converted
this into a two-character picture, some said it wasn’t the play, others that the
play wasn’t any good, or was that The Doctor’s Dilemma?
The lady, who has
more money from her late father than anyone has in England, bestows it in
marriage upon a tennis-and-boxing champion, nearly a “suit of clothes”, and
finally a servant of the living God, whom he calls Allah, having with her cleverness
improved the profitability of that sweatshop by eliminating the middleman, and
done up the Pig & Whistle by throwing out the old proprietors, of this the
Egyptian doctor does not approve.
James Villiers is
the champ, Charles Gray the suit, everybody is perfect.