What a Change

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

A vulgar farce illustrating the predicament in which a mild curate finds himself at the seaside through donning the clothes of a bookmaker who is "wanted" by the local police. The curate is arrested, but before he can establish his identity the bookmaker also is brought into the Police Station charged with masquerading in woman's clothes, these being the garments of the curate's wife, stolen whist she and her husband were bathing from an alcove on the beach. Presently the poor lady herself appears upon the scene, attired in her husband's clerical attire, which she has put on over her bathing dress. The fun of all this part of the piece is disagreeable but nothing worse. It becomes, however, more offensive in the final scene, pp 23-25, where for their exchange of garments the three are left in a room with the blinds drawn down by the Inspector, and there are remarks heard in the dark from the bookmaker and the curate's wife suggest all sorts of nastiness. This passage must be rewritten so that the bookie and the lady do not disrobe together. Under this condition the vulgar play may perhaps be recommended for license. Ernest A. Bendall.