Novel Into Play
The Cathedral. By Hugh Walpole. (Macmillan. 3s. 6d.) Reviewed by ROBERT SPEA1GHT This is a play founded on Mr. Walpole's famous novel of the same name. It was performed in London some years ago with considerable effect, but it is only on reading it in its published form that one realises how the essential truths of its subject have been sacrificed to the violences of the stage. Mr. Walpole can handle the superficies of his theme with great dexterity. but he cannot persuade us that we have seen into the cathedral close.
The story of Archdeacon Brandon's struggle against the innovating Canon Mender: of his defeat, his despair and his death; of his wife's desertion and his son's defiance; all this, except perhaps his wife's intrigue, is not in itself improbable. But Mr. Walpole has coloured his characters so highly, given them so consistently the language of melodrama, and lent to their conflicts so theatrical an emphasis that any illusion of truth is lost.
A good play should give one the clue to