ALEXANDER WATSON

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 272, 11 August 1921, Page 6

ALEXANDER WATSON

IN DICKENS AND OTHER SELECTIONS. There are lovers of Dickens who declare "that they would not cross the road to hoar tho best man in the world recite Dickens,” and who actually believe that in talcing up that athtode they are showing an extra degree of loj ■ altj to the most human of Engiands novelists (in the printed, word) To hwr Mr Alexander Watson expound Sicken* is to revive in the memory all that ie best in tho stories set for nan-ation Hi JX fairly into the skin of the characters, and radiates their humour and •'umanity from within._ There is superficial or mechanical with Mr Wat6on. His sincerity and fidelity to ths original of the author ere his two brightest possessions. This was e ™>®n in his recital of "The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn,” a little masterpiece in humour and pathos which Mr. atso J\ r^ clt 2 ed so ably at tho Concert Chamber last evening. To re-read- the story ™ enough, but to rub shoulders with the characters, to hear them talk, laugh, and weep—as one does with Mr. Watson thrilling. Mr. Watson also gave in hw best style John Hopkins’s story from "The Pickwick Papers. Among the other gems of verse an d Pre S e offered were “Lone Pine Ridge, 1915 (a fine GalJjpoli memory), by m '‘ S p“ "Song of the Banjo’ and The Shut-Eye Sentry” (Kipling). , Pa , ter *™ ’ “The Amateur Rider, Malt ham s Th® Ballad of the Mayflower a ’ ld humorous story of "Sir Timothy s Dilemma." . , „„„ This evening's programme is of very special interest. The first part will consist of selections from Shakespeare 4 "Tempest" and "Romeo and Juliet, and in the second part Mr. Watson will recite that infectious "disease, . Punch, Brothers, Punch" (Mark Twain), and verses 'by Tennyson, Whitcomb, Christina Rossetti, G. S. Foss and C. J. Dennis’s "Singing Soldiers," from Ginger Mick.”