Denry Machin, the hero of Arnold Bennett's 'The Card' is now middle-aged, wealthy, successful, married with a family - and fed up with life in the Five Towns. When he ends up holding a half-option for the right to build a new theatre in the West End, he realises this is the challenge he's been looking for, and goes down to London to investigate. Once there, he dares, as a mere untitled, unknown Midlander, to take a room at the most snobbish hotel in the city. From it he embarks on a campaign to outmanoeuvre (or co-opt) a snotty firm of lawyers, the building-plot's aristocratic landowner, the Bloomsbury-like Azure Society, a highly-strung playwright, a famous suffragette, and many others, in the effort to put on a piece of Intellectual Theatre - and of course (being Denry Machin) to Make It Pay.
Like many sequels, this isn't as good as the original, but it's still got enough good humour and satire of its era to make it worth a read, especially for fans of 'The Card'.
