Will Hay makes his cinema debut in this adaptation of Sir Arthur Pinero's play The Magistrate. It was a debut that was late coming for Hay as he was in his 46th year. The film provided a vehicle for Will to return to his music-hall roots and play a magistrate who gets involved in a series of disreputable escapades in a Victorian music-hall. The plot centres around Will Hay's character, Magistrate Brutus Poskett and his streetwise stepson Dickie, played by John Mills, who the magistrate believes to be only fifteen, but decidedly precocious for his age. Actually the boy is over twenty but because his widowed mother lied about her age when she married the magistrate, they have to keep the boy's age a secret. When the mother learns that a friend of her first husband is to visit them, she and her sister track him down to the music-hall so they can ask him to keep quiet about her age. Dickie the stepson persuades the Magistrate to go to the music-hall, unknowing that his mother and aunt will also be in attendance. A massive brawl takes place and most of the family are arrested in the excitement. The Magistrate manages to escape the fracas, and next morning he enters court and he sentences his own wife and sister-in-law to seven days imprisonment without the option. He fails to recognise his wife because she and her sister are both heavily veiled. It is left to another Magistrate who is brought into the court to sort out confusion and the family is reconciled. The film is also notable for it's genuine period atmosphere and it's splendid recreation of a night at a old time Victorian music-hall.
Featuring the music-hall acts of
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