"Command Performance"

Up to about 35 years of age, males of the Royal Family are among the most appreciative voluntary patrons of London slapstick vaudeville, but now that George VI has assumed the throne, many loyal subjects find it slightly improper to think that such crude amusement can be either to the King's or the Queen's taste. Fortnight ago millions of provincial radio listeners to the first vaudeville Command Performance before Their Majesties agreed that the B. B. C.'s female commentator had struck exactly the right note in saying of Queen Elizabeth: "She is smiling sweetly, as though she really enjoys it."

As usual, the B. B. C. was putting its official glaze over the facts, for everyone at the London Palladium saw and heard King George roaring and Queen Elizabeth laughing till the tears came at the way Cicely Courtneidge burlesqued a "larky spinster," at Gracie Fields scratching herself as an itching mill girl and at Jack La Vier hopelessly entangling himself in a trapeze after he had announced, "Now I'll show you just how far insanity has advanced !"

Famed British off-color-storyteller, Max Miller, got the only laugh in which Their Majesties could not very well join. Unlike the rest of the audience, King George and Queen Elizabeth apparently did not know the end of the extremely old and questionable anecdote which Mr. Miller began to tell, then brought down the breathless house by glancing at the Royal Box and breaking off "No, no! I can't tell this one tonight!" Instead Max told the one about the girl who said to him "Aren't you ugly, Max!"

"I can't help the way I was born."

"No, but you could stay indoors!"

At this Their Majesties, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent, laughed hugely, also at Mr. Miller's joke about the tramp who said "Lady, I haven't eaten for three days," and her reply, "Well, my good man, this can't go on--you'll simply have to force yourself."

Reported the London Dally Mail next morning, "The difficulty of including mimics [in the program of a Command Performance], which existed during the lifetime of King George V., did not arise last night. The present King and Queen have seen sufficient films and plays to appreciate fully, as they obviously did, Miss Florence Desmond's keenly-detailed and effective burlesques of Dietrich, Garbo, Dorothy Dickson--and especially good, Jessie Matthews."

"A grand evening!" commented King George after the last turn, a Scottish shepherd who sang A Hundred Pipers an' A', after which 100 pipers from Scottish regiments marched in piping their loudest, burst into God Save the King before a backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. Cried Scottish Queen Elizabeth "Thank you for a wonderful surprise at the end!"

Later, with King George out of town on a shooting trip last week, the Queen's Standard was flown at Buckingham Palace for the first time, showing that Her Majesty was alone in residence. Proud Scots passing by noted that the Queen's Standard incorporates the Scottish arms of Bowes-Lyon with the standards of England, Ireland and Scotland.

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