“The Lion Tamer”


Ernest Thesiger as Lord John Langdale


Gate Theatre, London

March 4 - April 17

 

“The Gate Theatre has now won a great success by an English version of this very amusing play: Mr. Ernest Thesiger has the part of the English milord, who represents ideals or spirit - pitted against the appallingly real mass of matter embodied in the huge frame of a circus lion-tamer. He plays it much less blandly, much less impassively, than the French actor did. I daresay he is right, and, anyhow, it is the height of comic joy to see him, his face convulsed by disgust, watching the lion-tamer's meaty British breakfast; matter reinforcing itself impenitently, while fancy and imagination murmur in anguish ‘What a dreadful man!’ Yes, indeed! These torturing incompatibilities! But ‘the show goes on,’ and it is run, if not by lion-tamers, at least by shepherds who are ‘dreadfully’ inconsiderate of sheep; as of vegetarians, humanitarians, dreamers and poets.”

The Spectator, March 22, 1930

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, March 15, 1930