Above all, if it is wise it will remember that (as I believe at any rate) its public does not yearn for the “shocking” incident merely as such, but as representing a rare experience, and it will look for some rarities that are not shocking. A THEATRICAL FORECAST Newspapers periodically publish their review of the past theatrical year. But it is always a sad thing to recall the past, especially the immediate past, which is too recent to be history and only old enough to be stale. Why not, then, let bygones be bygones and turn to the future, about which hope springs eternal, and which gives free scope to the imagination instead of imposing the tedious labour of research? What are our leading dramatists going to give us next year? The question might be treated in a matter-of-fact way by just going and asking them—and perhaps getting very disappointing answers. It seems more sportsmanlike to guess; besides, it leaves room for some piquant surprises when one is by and by confronted with the actual. These, then, are one or two guesses for next season. It is long, too long, since London had a play from Sir Arthur Pinero. When he writes a play he gives you a play, not a symposium or a sermon or a piece of propagandism, but a dramatic action which interests you in its story, makes you wonder what is going to happen next, and takes care that something does happen, striking at the moment and worth thinking about afterwards. His characters are presented in strong relief, there is always a dramatic conflict of wills, his women are never insipid, are sometimes deliciously perverse, and, if not past redemption (in which case they commit suicide), are “saved” by the nearest Anglican bishop or dean. His forthcoming play will ignore the Church and will deal with a household divided on the “spiritualistic” question. The husband, who suffers from mild shell-shock and saw the “angels of Mons,” will have come back from the war a devoted follower of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle. The wife (Miss Irene Vanbrugh) will be a pretty sceptic, adoring her husband, but impatient of his credulity and determined to “laugh him out” of it. An opportunity occurs. The young pair have been having a sarcastic scene (a fine opportunity for Miss Irene’s merry ringing laugh) about the husband’s bosom-friend Jack, whom he had left for dead on the field at Mons. The husband eagerly hopes to get into communication with Jack “on the other side.” The wife only remembers, with twinges of conscience, certain love passages she had, before her marriage, with the said Jack, of which she has never told her husband. Now Jack is not dead, but on his way to his bosom-friend, when the wife meets him. She sees at once a chance of opening her husband’s eyes. “We’ll have a _séance_,” she says to Jack; “you shall pretend to be your own spirit, and then suddenly reveal yourself as flesh and blood—and Tom will be for ever cured of his foolishness.” Jack agrees, but he