AMUSEMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 38, 14 February 1905, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS.

OPERA HOUSE. "NEVER DESPAIFw." Last night's audience can hav.° had only on? thought—Horatio Sprigging. For Horatio is :i stroke of zeniu*. Plavoil hy lindoirirtedly tht> drollest comedian seen h<»r« for many a !on»i day. no one would have iiskod for more than an excuse for his appearance. i Willie Edouin at bis best was not morp ! eomi<-; whik* there are subtleties with j Mr Tavior that suggest J. L. Toole and j the jnlt-edged hrnnour of. the eighties. Horatio Spriggins is apparently nothing ; 1 more nor less in his origin than the I 1 conventional "masher" of this type of play. That- Mr. Taylor has transformed him into the most ludicrous of mixtures of Micawber and Pecksniff and Paul -Pry, and other funity folk all rolled into one droll personage is not a ligiit I achievement. The play itself, moreover, is a particularly sood specimen of its kind. The coincidences are not exaggerated, the interest is well sustained without being overwhelming- and therefore dull, and the sentiment is true. The plot turns upon the efforts of one Desmond Adair to make away wk.li Harry Brierly, while a sub-plot shows the at- j tempts of Adflir's creature Sepiimas \ Phipps to get Kate Brierly int" i his. power. The foiling of these j two villians step- by seep by Horatio Spriggias, who is a bit of a, himself, is excellently carried our in the acting. Miss Muriel Mnrton played satisfactorily as Kate Brierly, Miss Ella Carrington with much originality as the street arab. Jack: Desmond Adnir is taken well and not too villainously bj Mr Ward Lyons: while Mr Edwin Green does some good work a3 Phipps. But Mr Taylor is the memory and. the delight.