Dinner for Eight

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

A comedietta of smart irresponsibly-witty talk by a young married society-lady, who is lineally descended from the author's familiar Dodo. Bored with the absences of her husband at his yeomanry-training she gets up an impromptu dinner-party by telephone; and her conversation with a sympathetic friend and a knowing maid during the process indicates very brightly the kind of 'advanced' society in which she and her kindred 'souls' move. Just when she is dressed for the fray her first guest arrives for the half-hour's preliminary chat to which he has been bidden. He turns out to be her husband - up in town on unexpected leave - who had chance to answer the telephone at the house of one of the friends invited, and whose voice had not been recognised by his wife. Their mutual understanding precludes any serious issue to the risky blunder; and the wife rushes off to a tete-a-tete dinner with her husband at the savoy, putting off her proposed guests on various excuses as reckless as were her invitations. The 'smart set' comedy is thoroughly up to date; and with the interpretation which it seems likely to receive it should afford much innocent entertainment. The indecorous business, however, set down for the heroine on p.p. 9 &10, where her maid is to help to change her stockings in view of the audience, is happily neither characteristic nor eventual and should be omitted. With this proviso the piece is Recommended for license. Ernest A. Bendall.

Researcher's Summary:

This play was written especially for Miss Viola Tree, and supposedly built on her ow personality. The bedroom in the play was also based on her husband's actual bedroom. (see Evening News, 8 March 1915).