Sidarella Plus Pickaxe

Sir,—The implication in the tone of the dailies reviews, that Sidarella was one of those noisy but hilarious efforts of the naughty young students, was accurate enough. Sidarella was occasionally witty, but its humour, on the whole, was that of the pickaxe rather than the rapier. I, for one, sighed for the palmy days of Peter Pansy. There were a couple of really funny lines (McKartho's "I'm Just Mad About Harry" and Frank Curtin's "Anyway they're not going to get the Sudan"), and a couple of good lyrics, such as "Much Doodling," but on the whole the performance was pedestrian, and relied heavily on the favourite old vulgarities. It was noticeable that the first-night audience, at any rate, had only one encore, for the men's ballet, which was about the funniest thing in the show; and they certainly did not feel as badly about UNO as did Messrs. Bollinger, McNeil, and Piper. Two small things: several references were in really bad taste—e.g., some of the cracks about the Korean war, and the reference on the programme to Helen Keller. And the beetle in the interval had palled a little in humour since its appearance last year.

"M.A. Graduate."