Radio review – TGA#35 – “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” (1946) **

What was a subplot in The Man Who Came to Dinner is here padded out to a full length play by St John Ervine (it was written before Dinner), not with great results. Gertrude Lawrence plays an actress apparently modelled on Mrs Patrick Campbell but also with a little of Lawrence in her too, who winds up in a small town and hits on the author of a new play (as in Dinner, he’s called Jeff), to the consternation of the playwright’s pseudo-girlfriend – so she gets her uncle to hit on Lawrence. The fun that follows is mild – Lawrence is a man-eater who is engaged a lot and is temperamental. Lawrence’s performance is alright, but the magic she apparently had on stage does not carry.