It is not often that the Boston public is treated to a Broadway production at the same time as the New York playgoers, and with a company equal in every particular to the original one. Such is the case, however, with "The Better 'Ole" whose run at the Hollis Street Theatre, now beginning its second week, aids fair to establish a new record for popularity.

"The Better 'Ole" purports to represent a faithful picture of Tommy Atkins as made famous through Captain Bairns-father's cartoons. Therefore its chief characteristic naturally is humor, which, blended with some of the softer feelings which find such remarkable expression in the private soldier, is sustained throughout the entire play. A perfectly impossible plot gives the series of seven "splinters" and a "short gas attack" a slight backbone. The story centres about Old Bill's discovery of a German plot, his blowing up of the strategic bridge, and his subsequent court martial and award of the V. C. But all this is of little moment, except to hold the production together and prevent its deteriorating into vaudeville.

The main interest centres around the characters of Captain Bairns-father's "Three Muskrats": Bert, Alf, and Old Bill. Mr. Edmund Gurney, as Old Bill, seemed to have stepped right out of "Fragments from France." A fine old walrus he was, blowing his drooping whiskers up from his mouth and expressing all emotions by the intelligent ejaculation, 'Ullo! As Alf, of the patent cigar lighter which would never light, Mr. Percy Jennings gave a very realistic representation of that cheerful, red headed little Irishman of the type which seems to have almost disappeared in these days of Teuton plots and Sinn Feiners. Mr. Leon Gordon, formerly of the Henry Jewett Players, took the part of Bert, the Don Juan of the trio, the man "with a girl in every trench." His interpretation of the part was faultless but he suffered from being somewhat too immaculate for a Tommy at the front.