The Play-Pictorial - The Chocolate Soldier (Play-Pictorial: Illustrated Monthly Journal, No. 98)

Circa 40pp stapled magazine with many black and white illustrations and contemporary advertisements.  4to.  Covers are worn and soiled;  rubbed, and scuffed around edges, with some brittled cracking over spine,  short tear on rear panel.   Internally a few minor signs of handling but generally clean, bright and tight. The Play Pictorial was a monthly London theatrical magazine.  There were 446 issues in total, with the first published in April 1902 and the last in September 1939. It was first edited by Rudolph Birnbaum (from April 1902 to April 1904), then by Frank M Boyd. then Fred Dangerfield.  In 1906, after Benjamin Findon became editor, a position he retained until the journal folded on the outbreak of the second world war.  The Play Pictorial showcased, with largely pictorial features,  contemporary West End theatre productions, with each issue providing a detailed record of a single show.  It described plot, costumes and sets, and had numerous photographs of the cast and scenes from the production. For musicals, some of the lyrics and short extracts from the scores were included.  This issue features a 1910 production of  the operetta The Chocolate Soldier, based on George Bernard Shaw's play, The Arms and the Man.  starring Constance Drever and Charles Herbert Workman.  (Shaw despised the operetta, calling it "a putrid opera bouffe in the worst taste, but came to regret refusing payment when it became an international success).