Conway Hall, London

‘Upon my soul, I don’t think I have ever seen such badly produced student-actors as those who appeared at the Conway Hall last Friday evening. They belonged to the Lewisohn Dramatic Society, and are different from ordinary amateurs in that they pay a well-known and well-tried professional actor, Victor Lewisohn, to train them. Amateurs usually respond remarkably well to the efforts of a professional producer; these were the exceptions. The four one-act plays appeared to have been thrown on the stage at the last moment; and some of the acting was not worthy a drawing-room charade … The plays were: “Heard In Camera,” a long-winded and (so far as I could judge), far too complicated mystery, by Essex Dane; Richard Hughes’s “The Sisters’ Tragedy,” a play that has genuine irony and pathos, but should end far sooner than it does; “It’s the Poor that ‘Elps the Poor,” by Harold Chapin; and “The Showing-Up of Blanco Posnet,” by G.B.S. … In Shaw’s play, Hyam Gilbert played Blanco with such real fire that one forgave his occasional drying-up, while Roland Abbott, as Elder Daniels, was plausible and unctuous in the right degree. Stanley Grimes, as the Sheriff, was unfortunately buried behind a crowd’. The Era, 17 January 1934.